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Late-Holocene Vegetational History Of A Subtropical Mountain In Southeastern China., Hong-Lie Qiu Jan 1993

Late-Holocene Vegetational History Of A Subtropical Mountain In Southeastern China., Hong-Lie Qiu

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This research primarily examines the pollen evidence of vegetation change in the light of human disturbance in the subtropical mountains in southeastern China based on three sediment cores from the elongated peat-filled depressions in subalpine headwater zones (dambos) from the Daiyun Mountain Range of Fujian Province (approximately 25$\sp\circ 40\sp\prime$N, 118$\sp\circ 11\sp\prime$E). Twenty-four surface pollen samples collected from different locations in Fujian Province were included in this study intended to provide a better understanding of the relationships between vegetation and pollen rain in hilly areas, and the pollen signature of human disturbance. Analysis of pollen and sediment-stratigraphic data from this study …

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Women's Stories Of Reading And Writing: Three Literacy Life Histories., Mary Annette Duchein Jan 1993

Women's Stories Of Reading And Writing: Three Literacy Life Histories., Mary Annette Duchein

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The stories of three retired women who have shown a lifelong and continuing commitment to learning and literacy were addressed through life history methodology. Three literacy life histories were produced which were then analyzed in light of current research in the field of reading and literacy. All life phases were addressed, but emphasis was placed on the retirement years. Results confirmed prior research in the field of reading across four lifespan phases--preformal schooling, formal schooling, homemaker/workplace, and retirement--and suggested that reading and writing grew in importance during the retirement years and led to an extension or increase in mental awareness. …

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A Multiple Objective Formulation And Algorithm For The Layout Design Of Food Processing Facilities., Francisco A. Escobar Jan 1993

A Multiple Objective Formulation And Algorithm For The Layout Design Of Food Processing Facilities., Francisco A. Escobar

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

A multiple objective formulation, which incorporates robustness and constraint enforcement as design criteria, is utilized to model the layout of food processing facilities. These facilities are subject to the compliance with guidelines dictated by public health agencies, changes in product mix, and variation in production levels due to seasonality, which render existing layout design algorithms unsuitable for their design. The solution of the robust multiple objective formulation is implemented using a construction heuristic algorithm, MORCH, and an improvement heuristics, MOLAD. The MORCH/MOLAD hybrid algorithm performs comparably to well known heuristic algorithms where materials handling cost is used as the only …

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Corporate Restructuring And The Information Hypothesis: An Empirical Analysis., Steven Randal Ferraro Jan 1993

Corporate Restructuring And The Information Hypothesis: An Empirical Analysis., Steven Randal Ferraro

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the motivation behind various restructuring choices within a securities issuance context. Previous theoretical models and empirical evidence suggest that three methods of restructuring--equity carve-outs, sell-offs, and spin-offs, on average, signal favorable information about parent firms. This has been interpreted as reflecting either enhanced potential for efficiency gains, positive asymmetric information about the value of industry assets, or changes in agency costs. This dissertation presents an alternative framework by relating restructuring announcements to the effects of security issuance. Empirical tests are formulated to determine if these announcements contain valuable private information about the …

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The Prediction Of Financial Turnaround Of Financially Distressed Firms., Leslie B. Fletcher Jan 1993

The Prediction Of Financial Turnaround Of Financially Distressed Firms., Leslie B. Fletcher

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

There is little extant accounting research on the turnaround phenomenon, when a financially distressed firm regains its financial health rather than merging with another firm or filing for protection under the Bankruptcy Act. The goal of this research was to determine whether financial and other publicly available information could be used to predict whether or not a distressed firm would turn around. To achieve that goal, a sample of distressed firms was identified based on their initial rather than final financial condition. A measure external to the firm--Standard and Poor's earnings and dividend ranking for common stock--was used to identify …

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The Writing Behaviors Of Five Kindergarteners Writing In Social Context: A Home-School Perspective., Wanda Henderson Handy Jan 1993

The Writing Behaviors Of Five Kindergarteners Writing In Social Context: A Home-School Perspective., Wanda Henderson Handy

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between written language and spoken language and the function of that relationship during the beginning writing development of five kindergarteners from diverse literacy environments. In addition, observable writing behaviors of these five kindergarteners from more literate and less literate home environments were studied at home and in school. Ethnographic methodology was employed. Data collection included interviews, participant observation, field notes, checklists, photographs, audio recordings, video recordings, and writing samples. For 4 months, the case study participants were observed once a week while writing at home and in the school writing …

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Optimal Design Of A Fully Parallel Robot Manipulator., Chan Soo Kim Jan 1993

Optimal Design Of A Fully Parallel Robot Manipulator., Chan Soo Kim

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Optimal design of a six degrees-of-freedom, fully parallel manipulator, called a Stewart platform is investigated. In order to optimize the mechanism, new performance measures are introduced since use of the previous methods suffer from lack of physical meaning due to dimensional inhomogeneity. To overcome the dimensional inhomogeneity problem, an Euclidean norm definition of each output space with homogeneous dimension is used to find input-output norm relation. As a result, four sets of eigenvalues are obtained which characterize translational and rotational velocity, force and torque, and position and orientation accuracy. From the four sets of eigenvalues, four determinant measures are defined, …

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Magnetic Field Dependence Of The Specific Heat Of A Heavy Fermion System., Jai Won Kim Jan 1993

Magnetic Field Dependence Of The Specific Heat Of A Heavy Fermion System., Jai Won Kim

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

One of the distinguishing characteristics of heavy Fermion materials is the extraordinarily large size of the electronic specific heat at low temperatures. It is also observed that in some cases, the specific heat is reduced drastically by an external magnetic field. We show that this behavior can be simulated by using the non-degenerate lattice Anderson model on a 4-site tetrahedral cluster. Interactions included in the model are the on-site Couloumb repulsion between electrons in the f-orbital and the off-site spin conserving hybridization between electrons in the conduction and the f-orbitals. Our calculation is done by using the exact diagonalization method. …

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Two Essays On Liquidity Suppliers' Gross Profits., Jie-Haun Lee Jan 1993

Two Essays On Liquidity Suppliers' Gross Profits., Jie-Haun Lee

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the strategic behavior of the specialist proposed by Glosten (1989) and its implications for price volatility and market liquidity. The extant literature suggests that the bid-ask spread is responsible, at least in part, for the greater volatility and more negative autocorrelation at the open than at the close. We find that these phenomena are not related to the bid-ask spread, but related to pricing errors quoted by the specialist or by limit order traders around the open. We use George, Kaul, and Nimalendran's (1991) model, which is less biased than Roll's (1984) …

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Personal Narrative: Revealing Self And Reflecting Other., Charla Lee Markham Shaw Jan 1993

Personal Narrative: Revealing Self And Reflecting Other., Charla Lee Markham Shaw

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Self-presentation is a response to internal and external demands for self-verification. The telling of personal narratives is one form of presenting self to others that begins early in life, and crosses racial, ethnic, and cultural boundaries. Not only do we present ourselves through narrative, those with whom we are socially involved present us to others through narrative. The primary purpose of this study was to examine how well one's perception of self is communicated to familiar others. Secondarily, this study explored the impact of sex differences and relationship type on the success of this communication. One hundred targets each brought …

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Concept Circle Diagrams: A Metacognitive Learning Strategy To Enhance Meaningful Learning In The Elementary Science Classroom., Connie Sue Nobles Jan 1993

Concept Circle Diagrams: A Metacognitive Learning Strategy To Enhance Meaningful Learning In The Elementary Science Classroom., Connie Sue Nobles

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to explore the use of concept circle diagrams, a newly developed metacognitive strategy (Wandersee, 1987), for meaningful science learning. Two research questions were: (a) Do concept circle diagrams enhance the identification and learning of science concepts more than traditional learning methods? and (b) Do concept circle diagrams evolve in quality within and across three sequences of direct explanation, guided practice, and independent practice? This study builds upon earlier research on two important metacognitive strategies, Vee diagrams (Gowin, 1981) and concept mapping (Novak & Gowin, 1984), used in science education. Participants were members of two …

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Phase Transitions And Flux Distributions Of Su(2) Lattice Gauge Theory., Yingcai Peng Jan 1993

Phase Transitions And Flux Distributions Of Su(2) Lattice Gauge Theory., Yingcai Peng

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The strong interactions between quarks are believed to be described by Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), which is a non-abelian SU(3) gauge theory. It is known that QCD undergoes a deconfining phase transition at very high temperatures, that is, at low temperatures QCD is in a confined phase, at sufficient high temperatures it is in a unconfined phase. Also, quark confinement is believed to be due to the string formation. In this dissertation we studied SU(2) gauge theory using numerical methods of LGT, which will provide some insights about the properties of QCD because SU(2) is similar to SU(3). We measured the …

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Children Of A Lesser Education: Contemporary American Drama And Multiculturalism., Walter Holton Placzek Jan 1993

Children Of A Lesser Education: Contemporary American Drama And Multiculturalism., Walter Holton Placzek

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This study explores issues of multiculturalism in contemporary American plays that deal with education. The project begins by identifying the value which the American social order places upon education. It next analyzes the shifting and multiple definitions and connotations of "culture" and "multiculturalism," probing the possible implications of multicultural education for American society. Seven contemporary American plays (all of which place a primary focus upon the educational system and/or process) are examined: Uncommon Women and Others, the one-act and full-length versions of Open Admissions, Children of a Lesser God, Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, Another Antigone, and …

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Squared Law Algorithms: Theory And Applications., Poornachandra Bellamkonda Rao Jan 1993

Squared Law Algorithms: Theory And Applications., Poornachandra Bellamkonda Rao

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation focuses on a new approach for a hardware implementation of the cyclic convolution operation. The cyclic convolution operation is the core of several functions used in applications related to digital signal processing and error control. Since the operation is multiplication intensive and the cost of a multiplication operation is very high, most of the present research effort attempts to reduce the number of multiplications. Our approach, however, aims at obtaining an efficient implementation by relying on the properties of the special case of multiplication, namely, the squaring operation. Due to the properties exhibited by the squaring operation the …

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Three-Dimensional Large-Scale Coherent Structures In A Developing Plane Mixing Layer., Taewon Seo Jan 1993

Three-Dimensional Large-Scale Coherent Structures In A Developing Plane Mixing Layer., Taewon Seo

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

A theoretical investigation of the role of three-dimensional large-scale structures and their mutual interactions in a developing, plane mixing layer subjected to external forcing is presented. Large-scale structures are decomposed into 3 fundamental and 2 subharmonic wave modes. Two fundamentals and one subharmonic are three-dimensional. Linear stability of the three-dimensional, viscous shear layer is formulated and solved as the basis for the solution of a nonlinear formulation based on an energy method. This method leads to a set of nonlinearly-coupled, ordinary differential equations governing the evolution of modal energies and phases, and of the shear layer thickness. A parametric study …

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Effect Of Planting Date And Other Management Inputs On Production Of Wheat., Syed Asif Hussain Shah Jan 1993

Effect Of Planting Date And Other Management Inputs On Production Of Wheat., Syed Asif Hussain Shah

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Intensive cereal management (ICM) can optimize the yield and performance of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L. emend. Thell.). Planting is often delayed beyond the optimum date along the Gulf Coast due to frequent precipitation. Field experiments were conducted at four locations in 1991 and two locations in 1992 to evaluate the effects of intensive management practices on performance of wheat planted at recommended and post-recommended dates. Seeding rates of 84 or 168 kg ha$\sp{-1}$ and topdress N rates of 90 or 90 + 45 kg ha$\sp{-1}$ were evaluated for an early and a late-maturing cultivar planted at a recommended date …

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Personality Types Of Program Managers And Job Coaches Of Supported Employment Services In Louisiana., Carol Ruth Techman Jan 1993

Personality Types Of Program Managers And Job Coaches Of Supported Employment Services In Louisiana., Carol Ruth Techman

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The primary purpose of this study was to describe the personality types of job coaches and program managers of supported employment programs (SEP) in Louisiana. The population frame consisted of supported employment personnel working for programs approved by Louisiana Rehabilitation Services (LRS). Fifty-two facilities were identified as having active SEPs. Representatives from 45 facilities responded to the questionnaires. Data were collected using two instruments. The researcher-designed information sheet was used to collect data on the variables: title, gender, number of clients served, type of supported employment services, number of job coaches, length of employment, and distribution of job responsibilities. The …

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Corporate Spinoffs: An Investigation Of Short And Long-Term Shareholder Wealth Effects., Verne Lawrence Thibodeaux Jan 1993

Corporate Spinoffs: An Investigation Of Short And Long-Term Shareholder Wealth Effects., Verne Lawrence Thibodeaux

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The positive stock price reaction associated with the announcement of a corporate spinoff is well-documented but not yet explained. This work offers a new hypothesis: investor sentiment may affect the market response to the announcement of a spinoff. The results of an investigation using market-oriented proxies for investor sentiment support this hypothesis. Results of an analysis using non-market proxies for investor sentiment are not consistent with the above hypothesis. An analysis of the long-term effects on shareholder wealth of spinoffs is also conducted. It is found that pre and post-spinoff performance cannot be considered (statistically) significantly different.

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Learning Complex Recursive Rules., Ching-Liang Tseng Jan 1993

Learning Complex Recursive Rules., Ching-Liang Tseng

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

We consider the problem of learning complex recursive rules which involve new concepts other than those given in the input relations and which must be discovered by the learning algorithm in the course of finding rules. The existing learning methods (FOIL, FORGE, and etc.) create rules based on the given concepts or relations but they cannot create new concepts. However, in many cases one must use new intermediate concepts in order to form the recursive rules. We give a new technique for constructing such intermediate concepts and learning rules based on those concepts. We illustrate the new technique with several …

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Didactic Solo Piano Works By Alexandre Tansman., Susan Marie Tusing Jan 1993

Didactic Solo Piano Works By Alexandre Tansman., Susan Marie Tusing

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The musical career of the Polish composer Alexandre Tansman (1897-1986) was multifaceted. He frequently performed as a pianist and conductor, and he composed numerous works for various performance media. Tansman was a well-respected musician, having received during his lifetime many awards and honors for his compositions. Among Tansman's music are numerous didactic works for solo piano. These pieces expose the student to a variety of musical genres and styles, while at the same time providing practical experience in the acquisition of musical and technical skills. This monograph examines the didactic solo piano works of Tansman, focusing primarily on the collections …

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A Framework For Assessing Consumer Satisfaction With Credence-Based Services: A Cognitive Script Approach., Bruce L. Alford Jan 1993

A Framework For Assessing Consumer Satisfaction With Credence-Based Services: A Cognitive Script Approach., Bruce L. Alford

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Service marketers have long needed research developed within the services area for services application. The majority of satisfaction research has pertained to products and attributes contained by those products. Yet with the acknowledged differences between services and products, there is still a void in the services satisfaction literature. The research attempted to develop a service-based model of consumer satisfaction with credence-based services, using cognitive scripts for the formation of expectations. Scripts represent a cognitive movie of what events should happen and in what order. When this expected process of events is deviated by the service provider, correspondent inference was posited …

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Characterization Of Physiological Responses Of Suspension Cells From Alligator Weed (Alternanthera Philoxeroides (Mart.); Griseb) To An Abrupt Increase In Salinity., Gloria Balagtas-Burow Jan 1993

Characterization Of Physiological Responses Of Suspension Cells From Alligator Weed (Alternanthera Philoxeroides (Mart.); Griseb) To An Abrupt Increase In Salinity., Gloria Balagtas-Burow

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Dark-grown suspension cells of alligator weed (Alternanthera philoxeroides (Mart.) Griseb) were established in Murashige and Skoog medium and used to characterize several cellular responses to an abrupt increase in salinity (0 to 200 mol m$\sp{-3}$ NaCl). The fresh weight and cell density of salt-treated cells of alligator weed more than doubled by 7 d. Cell viability declined to 77% by 1 d, but recovered to 86% by 7 d after salt treatment. These responses indicate that alligator weed cells survived and adapted to an abrupt increase in salinity. Osmotic potential ($\psi\sb\pi$) of salt-treated cells declined to the $\psi\sb\pi$ of the …

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Nitrogen Form, Aluminum, And Their Interaction Effects On Growth, Nitrogen Absorption And Chemical Composition Of Annual Ryegrass (Lolium Multiflorum Lam.)., Jose Ramon Binns Jan 1993

Nitrogen Form, Aluminum, And Their Interaction Effects On Growth, Nitrogen Absorption And Chemical Composition Of Annual Ryegrass (Lolium Multiflorum Lam.)., Jose Ramon Binns

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Annual ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum Lam.) is frequently grown on acid soils with potentially toxic levels of aluminum (Al). Interaction effects of nitrogen (N) form and Al on growth and nutrient relationships in ryegrass require further definition for environmental, biological, and economic reasons. Nutrient solution and soil experiments were conducted in growth chambers to determine interactive effects of ammonium: nitrate (NH$\sb4$:NO$\sb3$) ratios and Al on growth, N absorption, nutrient composition, cation influx rate, and N use efficiency. In nutrient solution studies, highest dry weights of shoots were obtained when the two N forms were present in equal proportions, while highest dry …

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Bimetallic Hydroformylation Catalysis., Melanie Eilleen Broussard Jan 1993

Bimetallic Hydroformylation Catalysis., Melanie Eilleen Broussard

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this project was to build upon previous results obtained with the ligand Et$\sb2$PCH$\sb2$CH$\sb2$P(Ph)CH$\sb2$P(Ph)CH$\sb2$CH$\sb2$PEt$ \sb2$, (hereafter referred to as et,ph-P4). The ligand was designed to both bridge and chelate two metal centers to hold them in close proximity so that cooperativity between the two metals is possible in homogeneous catalysis. This project concentrated on the synthesis of new bimetallic complexes using this ligand and the investigation of their catalytic potential. A highly regioselective bimetallic hydroformylation catalyst racemic- (Rh$\sb2$(nbd)$\sb2$(et,ph-P4)) 2BF$\sb4$ was previously synthesized in our laboratories. Structure reactivity studies were undertaken to prove our theory that the high linear …

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A Geoforensic Analysis Of State-Owned Waterbottoms In South Louisiana: Gauging The Geographical Impacts Of Louisiana Court Decisions. (Volumes I And Ii)., George Joseph Castille Iii Jan 1993

A Geoforensic Analysis Of State-Owned Waterbottoms In South Louisiana: Gauging The Geographical Impacts Of Louisiana Court Decisions. (Volumes I And Ii)., George Joseph Castille Iii

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The extent of State-owned waterbottoms in south Louisiana was examined through an analysis of Louisiana State court decisions. This analysis included court cases dating from 1812, the year of statehood, until 1992. Sample court cases were divided into groups representing some of the major issues involved in waterbottoms disputes for both coastal and inland areas. The nature of waterborne commerce was examined with an emphasis on identifying the types and sizes of watercraft used in commerce. The identification of waterborne commerce is important because the State owns the bottoms of all naturally formed navigable waterbodies, and navigability is determined by …

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A Study Of Heat Transfer In Rotary Desorbers Used To Remediate Contaminated Soils., Charles Alan Cook Jan 1993

A Study Of Heat Transfer In Rotary Desorbers Used To Remediate Contaminated Soils., Charles Alan Cook

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

A comprehensive heat transfer model is developed which describes heat transfer phenomena in rotary desorbers. This model predicts the temperatures of the solids bed and gases in the desorber and the rate of water evaporation from the solids. Emphasis is placed on describing the heat transfer process between the rotating wall of a desorber and the adjacent bed of solids. A heat-balance integral method is used to model heat conduction from the wall to adjacent wet bed particles. This solution includes the effects of water evaporation near the wall and a thermal contact resistance between the wall and the first …

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Physiological And Biochemical Responses To Hypoxia In The Blue Crab, Callinectes Sapidus Rathbun, The Lesser Blue Crab, Callinectes Similis Williams, And The Southern Oyster Drill, Stramonita Haemastoma Linnaeus., Tapash Das Jan 1993

Physiological And Biochemical Responses To Hypoxia In The Blue Crab, Callinectes Sapidus Rathbun, The Lesser Blue Crab, Callinectes Similis Williams, And The Southern Oyster Drill, Stramonita Haemastoma Linnaeus., Tapash Das

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This study measured the physiological and biochemical changes associated with exposure of the juvenile blue crab, Callinectes sapidus Rathbun and the lesser blue crab. C. similis Williams, to long term (28 d) hypoxia, short term (10 d) transfer from hypoxia to normoxia and a diurnally fluctuating oxygen regime for 28 days. The southern oyster drill, Stramonita haemastoma Linnaeus, was also exposed to 28 days of constant hypoxia to compare the responses of a tolerant species with the two species of Callinectes. The 28 day LC$\sb{50}$ estimates for C. sapidus, C. similis and S. haemastoma were respectively 106, 43 and 11.5 …

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The Influence Of Selected 4-H Agent And Program Characteristics On Program Enrollment., Catherine L. Denison Jan 1993

The Influence Of Selected 4-H Agent And Program Characteristics On Program Enrollment., Catherine L. Denison

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The primary purpose of this study was to identify program and agent characteristics which are related to changes in 4-H enrollment. The target population of the study was defined as agents of the Louisiana Cooperative Extension Service (LCES) assigned to work with the 4-H program who had been in a 4-H position for at least one year. The research instrument (questionnaire) was mailed to a random sample of 64 agents. One agent was randomly selected from each of the 64 parishes in Louisiana. Sixty-three agents (98.43%) responded to the questionnaire. Major findings of the study included: (1) A significant difference …

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Forecasting The Economic Effects Of Produced Waters Discharge Regulations On Oil And Gas Activity In Coastal Louisiana., Allen Paul Dupont Jan 1993

Forecasting The Economic Effects Of Produced Waters Discharge Regulations On Oil And Gas Activity In Coastal Louisiana., Allen Paul Dupont

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Proposed regulations would restrict surface disposal of untreated produced waters by oil and gas producers in coastal south Louisiana. The regulations would impose costs on oil and gas activity. This dissertation develops an integrated model of exploration and production activities which utilizes both economic and geological concepts, in which the cost of compliance with the proposed regulations is treated as a reduction in the real net price of oil. The goal is to predict the effects of the proposed regulations on exploration and production activity in the study region. The main findings are: (i) the proposed regulations would reinforce the …

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Object-Oriented Modeling And Design Using Delta, An Incremental Design Language., Nancy Kay Gautier Jan 1993

Object-Oriented Modeling And Design Using Delta, An Incremental Design Language., Nancy Kay Gautier

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Object-oriented technology has opened the doors for many new ideas in system development. The object-oriented paradigm has produced many new object-oriented programming languages. As with any new methodology, a need for formalism arises to remove ambiguities and inconsistencies and to bring a sense of continuity to software design. Formal languages provide a sound basis for software development throughout the software life cycle. This work presents a set of characteristic features for object-oriented design languages and defines a formal object-oriented design language, DELTA. The rapidly changing face of software has led to an ever increasing need to update out-of-date methods and …

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