Digital Commons Network^™

Transverse Thermoelectric Properties Of Cu/Mg2si And Ni/Mg2si Artificially Anisotropic Materials, David J N Esch

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis the spark plasma sintering process (SPS) was used to press Mg₂Si powder with Ni and Cu slices into alternating layer stacks. These stacks, once cut at an angle, are an artificially anisotropic material. This anisotropy provides transverse thermoelectric properties to the sample. The transverse transport properties were measured along with the individual component transport properties. The SPS process provided malleable samples that gave a power factors of for the Ni/Mg₂Si stack and for the Cu/Mg₂Si stack. These fall short of the theoretical calculations which would give the power factors as .0254 …

Broad Shoulders, Hidden Voices: The Legacy Of Integration At New Orleans' Benjamin Franklin High School, Graham S. Cooper

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This paper seeks to insert the voices of students into the historical discussion of public school integration in New Orleans. While history tends to ignore the memories of children that experienced integration firsthand, this paper argues that those memories can alter our understanding of that history. In 1963, Benjamin Franklin High School was the first public high school in New Orleans to integrate. Black students knowingly made sacrifices to transfer to Ben Franklin, as they were socially and politically conscious teenagers. Black students formed alliances with some white teachers and students to help combat the racist environment that still dominated …

“Cowboy, Paladin, Hero?”: Being Boys And Men In David Foster Wallace’S The Pale King, David J. Guidry

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Often aligned with post-postmodernism, David Foster Wallace’s later work retreats from the ironic detachment and cynicism of postmodernism in favor of a more sincere approach to writing. This is especially evident in his posthumous novel, The Pale King, a work dealing with what it means to be human in the Information Age. After locating the novel’s setting within a recent history of American masculinity and work, this paper examines several of the novel’s male characters as they struggle to be fully realized boys and men, concluding that The Pale King is Wallace’s final statement that enduring the ennui of …

A Phenomenological Investigation Of The Reporting Experience For Female Survivors Of Sexual Assault On College Campuses, Candace N. Park

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A qualitative phenomenological design was used to explore the lived experiences of college women who reported sexual assault to law enforcement officials. Utilizing a feminist conceptual framework, the purpose of the present study was to identify the essence of the reporting experience for college women who experienced a sexual assault. Six college women agreed to participate in the study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with open-ended questions to better understand the experience of the phenomenon under investigation. The Modification of the Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen Method of Analysis of Phenomenological Data (Moustakas, 1994) was utilized for analysis of the data collected in order to …

Feeling Your Heart Beat In The Palm Of Your Hand, Kami L. Ownbey

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

N/A

Urban Utopias And Suburban Slums: A Demographic Analysis Of Suburban Poverty And Reurbanization In American Metropolitan Statistical Areas, Isabelle Notter

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This study examines 2000 and 2010 Census data to determine the resettlement patterns of urban and suburban residents in 23 American metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). Previous research discusses the development of an affluent suburbia, leaving postindustrial cities in decline. However, recent literature suggests the reurbanization of postindustrial cities by the creative class, a Return to the City movement fueled by middle class entrepreneurs, artists, and technocrats. Alongside reurbanization are increases in poverty, and racial and ethnic enclaves in suburbia. The literature shows these trends as two separate, independent processes. This study investigates the relationship between these processes within MSAs. Consistent …

Analysis Of Sedimentation Characteristics Of Dredge Sediment Used In Coastal Restoration And Marsh Creation Projects, Christine M. Mebust

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

There is a demand to reestablish a healthy coastal ecosystem by rebuilding wetlands with river diversion or dredged sediments in coastal Louisiana. Land building projects using dredged sediments from adjacent canals and river beds, can be used to protect the coastal properties and infrastructure systems from flood and storm surges. To predict the sediment’s long term behavior, math models require input parameters based on sediment engineering properties and material characteristics. Proper characterization is critical for accurate design of coastal restoration projects. The dredge material sedimentation characteristics and their effects on the settlement rate of suspended solid particles and underlying foundation …

For Want Of: A Punk Rock Short Film, Jonathan P. Kieran

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In light of the specific challenges of assessing a thesis film—a project which contains artistic and academic components—the author examines his own short film For Want Of as a prototype for future work in film and as an opportunity for introspective investigation into the nature of filmmaking and personal artistic process. Reference is made to specific episodes during the film’s conception and production, as well as higher-level insight gained from following the film through an 18-month production cycle.

Photocatalytic Mineralization Of Phenol On Fluidized Titanium Oxide-Coated Silica Gel, Guillermo J. Rincon

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A bench-scale tubular reactor with recirculation was built in order to study the efficiency of the photocatalytic oxidation of phenol on fluidized titanium oxide-coated silica gel beads. A UV-C lamp placed along the central vertical axes of the reactor was used as source of photons. A bed of silica gel beads was fluidized by means of fluid recirculation and forced to follow upward helical flow around the lamp. Anatase was successfully synthetized on silica gel particles of average diameters 224, 357 and 461 µm, as confirmed by scanning electron micrographs, through a sol-gel technique using a titanium (iv)isopropoxide / hydrochloric …

Two Essays In Financial Economics, Kyle J. Putnam

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The following dissertation contains two distinct empirical essays which contribute to the overall field of Financial Economics. Chapter 1, entitled “The Determinants of Dynamic Dependence: An Analysis of Commodity Futures and Equity Markets,” examines the determinants of the dynamic equity-commodity return correlations between five commodity futures sub-sectors (energy, foods and fibers, grains and oilseeds, livestock, and precious metals) and a value-weighted equity market index (S&P 500). The study utilizes the traditional DCC model, as well as three time-varying copulas: (i) the normal copula, (ii) the student’s t copula, and (iii) the rotated-gumbel copula as dependence measures. Subsequently, the determinants of …

Blank Page: A Teacher Begins, John D. Wolfe

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Comprised of seven essays, this collection of literary nonfiction explores one man's journey into the teaching profession. The author recounts his experiences from just before he heard the call, to his first year teaching as an intern at Punahou School in Honolulu, through his first three years teaching full-time, and the challenges, mostly internal conflicts, he worked through as he taught freshmen and then two junior/senior electives before eventually going on sabbatical to Tanzania for his ninth year.

E To Em, Elizabeth M. Hogan

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A poetry thesis exploring subjects of gender identity, sexuality, socialization, writing, and craft, and including a preface that credits Emily Dickinson and Adrienne Rich as primary influences. One-third of the manuscript features epistolary prose poems in conversation with Dickinson, while the remaining portion contains poetry written in either free verse, traditional poetic form, or field composition.

A Song Of Rape And Infanticide: "Sir John Doth Play", Candace Crawford

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The Middle English lyric, “Sir John Doth Play,” narrated in the female voice clearly depicts rape by a male authority figure and the narrator’s distress over her unplanned pregnancy, yet has been repeatedly interpreted and introduced by critics as a love song portraying the interaction of a seductive village priest and a gullible maiden. As such, the lyric provides a unique perspective on the patriarchal nature of the twentieth century and the value of critically re-examining literature rather than canonizing accepted interpretations of literary work.

What Ever Happened To The Man From The Cosmos?, Christian Coleman

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

In My Heart Was A Kind Of Fighting, Dana Glass

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Stories Of Principals’ Roles As A Result Of High Stakes Teacher Evaluations In Louisiana, Jenna L. Galjour Chiasson

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In 2010, the Louisiana legislature passed Act 54, a law that requires public school teachers to undergo a performance-based accountability evaluation. COMPASS (Clear, Overall Measure of Performance to Analyze and Support Success) asks principals to evaluate teachers using a rubric with components of Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Teaching to evaluate teacher effectiveness (Act 54). Act 1, passed in 2012, ties Louisiana public school teacher’s pay and tenure to their score on COMPASS. Principals of Louisiana are now asked to evaluate teachers in a high stakes evaluation that is linked to teacher tenure and pay.

A qualitative study using narrative research …

“The Liberty Of The Nation Is In Jeopardy”: Views On The Battle Of Liberty Place From Beyond Dixie, Lee Facincani

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Temptation, Sin, And The Human Condition In Shakespeare's Macbeth, Maria Cusimano

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is colored with religious overtones. His play incorporates elements of religious beliefs of Renaissance England. Aside from its historical basis, Shakespeare’s Macbeth alludes to stories from Scripture as well as Renaissance religious practices and beliefs, particularly regarding witchcraft, prophecy, and the dangers of sin. Through this myriad of sources, Shakespeare offers a vivid and grotesque depiction of a man demise due to his involvement with sin, offering a profound caution to his audience of the dangers of temptation and sin.

Tulpamancy, Kia Groom

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In Tulpamancy Groom explores themes of gender, girlhood, and the grotesque in a collection of poems that confront our stereotypical assumptions about what it means to be feminine. Lyrical and disturbing, the poems in Tulpamancy use language in a highly associative manner to dismantle our preconceived notions about women, the muse, and the relationship between the two.

Automatic Classification Of Fish In Underwater Video; Pattern Matching - Affine Invariance And Beyond, Madhuri Gundam, Madhuri Gundam

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Underwater video is used by marine biologists to observe, identify, and quantify living marine resources. Video sequences are typically analyzed manually, which is a time consuming and laborious process. Automating this process will significantly save time and cost. This work proposes a technique for automatic fish classification in underwater video. The steps involved are background subtracting, fish region tracking and classification using features. The background processing is used to separate moving objects from their surrounding environment. Tracking associates multiple views of the same fish in consecutive frames. This step is especially important since recognizing and classifying one or a few …

Effects Of Rhes Prenylation On Mouse Cognition In A 3-Nitropropionic Acid Animal Model Of Huntington's Disease, Diana Hobbs

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Located on the short arm of chromosome 4, there exists a gene, IT15, responsible for the trinucleotide CAG expansion involved in the autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder known as Huntington’s disease (HD). The brain region associated with the most atrophy, the striatum, leads to expression of severe motor dysfunction, the hallmark feature of HD. To a lesser degree, the cortex and hippocampus show earlier deterioration indicative of the cognitive deficits that occur prior to motor symptom onset. The brain regions associated with HD-induced neuronal death additionally selectively express the protein Rhes - the combination of Rhes and mutant huntingtin being cytotoxic. …

A Fire Stronger Than God: Myth-Making And The Novella Form In Denis Johnson's Train Dreams, Chinh Ngo

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Using concepts of cognitive evolutionary theory, the author explores how narrative storytelling manifests itself in Denis Johnson's novella Train Dreams. The novella form is also discussed, focusing on its manipulation of linear time, its naturalization of supernatural elements, and its deconstruction of dichotomous relationships. Utilizing the novella's distinct structural and thematic elements, Johnson's text shows the myth of American expansionism and industrial progress and that of Kootenai holism in collision, resulting in a narrative renegotiation that seeks to affirm coexistence and complexity.

Becoming Number Six, Ross Peter Nelson

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Becoming Number Six is an original dramatic work: Stephanie Dylar is disturbed when two shadowy figures claiming to be intelligence agents appear on her doorstep. The agents, Lovelace and Babbage, represent a government branch known as The Division, and inform her that her son Jeremy may be involved in illegal computer activity. When Jeremy subsequently goes missing, Stephanie turns to her friend Julia for help, and is confronted with the realities of constant surveillance as Julia brings the hacking group Incognito into the mix.

Three-Dimensional Ideal Gas Reference State Based Energy Function, Avdesh Mishra

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Energy functions are found to be a key of protein structure prediction. In this work, we propose a novel 3-dimensional energy function based on hydrophobic-hydrophilic properties of amino acid where we consider at least three different possible interaction of amino acid in a 3-dimensional sphere categorized as hydrophilic versus hydrophilic, hydrophobic versus hydrophobic and hydrophobic versus hydrophilic. Each of these interactions are governed by a 3-dimensional parameter alpha used to model the interaction and 3-dimensional parameter beta used to model weight of contribution. We use Genetic Algorithm (GA) to optimize the value of alpha, beta and Z-score. We obtain three …

Playing With Jim Crow: African American Private Parks In Early Twentieth Century New Orleans, Kevin G. Mcqueeney

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Public space in New Orleans became increasingly segregated following the 1896 U. S. Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson. This trend applied to sites of recreation, as nearly all public parks in the city became segregated. African Americans turned, instead, to private parks. This work examines four private parks open to African Americans in order to understand the external forces that affected these spaces, leading to their success or closure, and their significance for black city residents. While scholars have argued public space in New Orleans was segregated during Jim Crow, little attention has been paid to African …

Talk Here: A Personal Chronology In Linked Essays, Neva Knott

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Reflections Of Globalization: A Case Study Of Informal Food Vendors In Southern Ghana, Arianna J. King

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In the context of rapid urbanization, globalization, market liberalization, and growing flexibility of labor in the post-Fordist era, urban environments have seen economic opportunities and employment in the formal sector become increasingly less available to the vast majority of urban dwellers in both high-income and low-income countries. The intersectional forces of globalization, and neoliberalization have contributed to the ever-growing role of informal economic opportunities in providing the necessary income to fulfill household needs for individuals throughout the world and have also influenced social, cultural, and spatial organization of informal sector workers. Using a case study and ethnographic information from several …

Effectiveness Of Statin And Bisphosphonate Treatment In A 3np Model Of Huntington’S Disease, Leslie K. Kelley

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

A Balanced Secondary Structure Predictor, Md Nasrul Islam

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Secondary structure (SS) refers to the local spatial organization of the polypeptide backbone atoms of a protein. Accurate prediction of SS is a vital clue to resolve the 3D structure of protein. SS has three different components- helix (H), beta (E) and coil (C). Most SS predictors are imbalanced as their accuracy in predicting helix and coil are high, however significantly low in the beta. The objective of this thesis is to develop a balanced SS predictor which achieves good accuracies in all three SS components. We proposed a novel approach to solve this problem by combining a genetic algorithm …

Men And Friendship: An Exploration Of Male Perceptions Of Same-Sex Friendships, Gerard Williams

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Differences between female and male same-sex friendships have been the subject of numerous studies. Additionally, male same-sex friendships have been studied independent of the differences related to female same-sex friendships. Despite these studies, a comprehensive, agreed on definition of male friendship remains unclear or ill-defined. The manner in which men perceive, express and experience same-sex friendships can be viewed as learned behaviors based on gender schema and sex typing. Men’s friendships, as viewed through the gender schema theory, are shaped through the association of gender based male identity and male behaviors. This phenomenological study investigated male perceptions of same-sex male …