Digital Commons Network^™

Covid-19 Impact On Instagram Travel Influencer Feeds: A Content Analysis, Kerrie Jones

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Instagram travel influencers are facilitators in the social institution of tourism that help connect potential travelers with stakeholders and destinations. The Covid-19 travel restrictions that started in March of last year have had significant impacts on tourism. Content analysis was used to assess impacts on Instagram travel influencer posts before and after the pandemic travel shutdowns. The analysis answered: 1. Has Covid-19 impacted Instagram travel influencer posts? 2. Is resilience showing in the frequency of posts by reaching pre-pandemic levels? Ten codes were analyzed individually across posts and categorized as: sponsored posts, pandemic-related posts, and current travel trends. Results showed …

Blackbirds Singing In The Dead, Skye E. Jackson

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Black poets have long explored the effects of grief and tragedy through their work while also navigating the challenges of a racist American society. This manuscript delves into those themes as the poet examines how she, her family, and romantic interests operate within those strange spheres as well. She explores the unique intimacy of grief and social isolation as she shows us what it means to be a Black woman in a racist and capitalistic society. Her work reveals the pain of operating within those structures and the devastating emotional toll it can take on the Black family.

A Novel Variable Reluctance Resolver With Simplified Winding Arrangement And Adaptive Pi Controller, Bikram Bhandari

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Conventional variable reluctance resolvers require a complicated winding arrangement (i.e., one set of excitation winding and two sets of signal winding), high-frequency ac supply, extra circuit component to demodulate the high frequency induced voltage (i.e., amplitude demodulation circuit), and a resolver-to-digital converter with the PI controller. The thesis presents an innovative design solution to reduce the structural complexity of the resolver and improve the functionality of the controller unit. The proposed novel design simplifies the winding arrangement and eliminates the necessity of the demodulation signal processing circuit component. In addition, the conventional PI controller is being replaced by the adaptive …

The Logistics Considerations Of The Landing Ship Tank And Its Evolution As An Auxiliary Repair Ship In World War Ii, Joel H. Berry Iii

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This study reveals how the US Navy’s Landing Ship Tank (LST) of World War II functioned in logistics support roles from the outset of its wartime participation and to a greater degree than many military planners ever envisioned. The ship’s simple design proved so versatile that, within one year of the first LST, the Navy began converting dozens of the ships to Landing Craft Repair Ships (ARL) and other auxiliary classes supporting myriad naval logistics tasks. Both the standard LST and the ARL made significant logistics contributions to the war effort well beyond amphibious assaults.

The Perils Of An Extraction Economy: Vernon Parish, Louisiana, 1870-1940, John C. Creed Jr

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

From the Louisiana Purchase to present day, Louisiana has prospered from its strategic and commercial location. Nodes of commerce like The Port of New Orleans and Union Pacific railyard, among other locations, and the state’s abundant natural resources gave it the potential to become an economic powerhouse. Among the state’s natural resources, lumber provided a boom to industry in the 1880s, which peaked in the 1910s and provided Louisiana with state-wide economic development. This paper argues that Louisiana’s lumber industry post-Reconstruction and a new period of commercialized railroad had a major economic impact on southwestern Louisiana, especially Vernon Parish. This …

Transcending Quarantine: The Artful Communication Of Dr. Guy Henry Faget And The Treatment Of Hansen’S Disease At The National Leprosarium, 1940 - 1946, Jessica M. Strawn

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The National Leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana served as a hospital and quarantine center for those diagnosed with Hansen’s disease (HD), formerly known as leprosy. From 1940 to 1946, Dr. Guy Henry Faget worked as the Medical Officer in Charge (MOC) and advanced treatment for patients by introducing sulfa drugs. Faget also wrote eleven articles in the patient-created hospital magazine known as The Star which educated readers about HD, and helped patients face the adversity of ancient social stigma that still persists. This thesis seeks to understand the secular and professional changes brought about by Dr. Faget, and his role in …

Heritage Dreams, Southern Nightmares, Chanèl P. Etienne

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The stories compiled here are the fruits of many deep discussions, late nights, and countless cups of coffee. The themes come from what I have dreamt of, fretted over, and/or hope will never come true. They took up so much room in my head that I had to spill them into paper. Tread lightly in the dreamscape.

We Built This Kingdom, John H. Cape

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

We Built This Kingdom is a collection of short stories which strive to examine the nuances of queer love, lust, connection, aggression, affection, masculinity, and heartache.

My intent is for these pieces to stand alone as short stories, but when read sequentially, the reader should be able to parse a connection between the texts and follow a tether from one to the other.

This collection of short fiction represents a cumulative body of work in partial completion of a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing.

Blueprint, Marissa Zeno

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Holding The Spotlight When The World Has Gone Dark, Hannah J. Alikhani

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic has had dramatic effects throughout the economy, but few industries have been hit harder than the performing arts. Theatres face unique challenges, including lost earned and contributed revenue, navigating virtual platforms, and how to sustain their audiences, who are distant both physically and mentally. This study seeks to explore the ways in which three mid-size nonprofit theatres work to overcome these challenges and adapt to the new and ever-changing landscape of live performance. At the same time, the Black Lives Matter movement and the demand for more equity across institutions of all types have placed additional social …

Colonial Development: The Importance Of The Backcountry Frontier In The Protection And Preservation Of Lowcountry Power In Colonial South Carolina, 1730-1769, Dillon A. Naquin

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In general discussions and teachings about the American Colonies before the Revolution, South Carolina is often oversimplified. Students are presented with a picture portraying the beginnings of American slavery, with large, cash crop plantations being worked by enslaved Africans while the white owners of the enslaved reap the benefits and enjoy a life of relative ease and luxury in their plantation houses and in the city of Charleston. Even when this picture includes extreme measures the planter elite took to enjoy this lifestyle in the form of slave laws and punishments, the more indirect methods of suppression are often left …

Machine Learning Based Restaurant Sales Forecasting, Austin B. Schmidt

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

To encourage proper employee scheduling for managing crew load, restaurants have a need for accurate sales forecasting. We predict partitions of sales days, so each day is broken up into three sales periods: 10:00 AM-1:59 PM, 2:00 PM-5:59 PM, and 6:00 PM-10:00 PM. This study focuses on the middle timeslot, where sales forecasts should extend for one week. We gather three years of sales between 2016-2019 from a local restaurant, to generate a new dataset for researching sales forecasting methods.

Outlined are methodologies used when going from raw data to a workable dataset. We test many machine learning models on …

And There I Was, Jennifer K. Jones

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Working with found imagery and objects, I explore sculptural processes and manipulated photographic methods as a metaphor for mental and physical transformation. Creating large scale cyanotypes that are exposed on painter’s linen, I have developed a unique process for stretching and coating linen that allows me to make images that feel more like paintings than photographs. Reflecting and analyzing aspects of my adult life, I present images and objects that challenge traditional gender roles that were impressed upon me throughout my up-bringing. My process is defined by experimentation. During the exposure of the image, dramatic shifts occur that allow for …

The Role Of Hearing Loss In Physiological And Psychological Stress And Attention In Children And Adolescents With Chromosome 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome, Ade Marais

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Studies of geriatric, profoundly deaf, and syndromic hearing-loss populations demonstrate significant negative consequences of hearing loss including poorer cognitive function, difficulties in social interactions, and increased risk of psychiatric disorders that compromise quality of life. To date, there are several empirical studies that have assessed the long-term effects of hearing loss on physiological, psychological, and socioemotional problems in children with chromosome 22q11.2DS. We measured different types of hearing loss in relation to attention, affective symptomology, physiological markers of stress, listening abilities, and balance in 22q11.2DS. Results revealed that children with 22q11.2DS have greater hearing loss in all frequencies and lower …

Dimensionless Analysis Of Trajectories Of Cylindrical Objects Dropped Into Water In Two Dimensions, Yi Zhen

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Nondimensionalization is powerful technique and is widely applied in the study of fluid mechanics and engineering because it helps to reduce the number of free parameters, identify the relative size of effects of parameters, and gain a deeper insight of the essential nature of phenomena. The nondimensionalization of 2D theory has been completed by the author (Zhen et.al.,2020) and new dimensionless equations of motion were obtained. In this study, new dimensionless dynamic equations are extended by incorporating new parameters to cope with various environmental conditions. The new dimensionless analysis of dropped cylindrical objects is consisted of four parts.

Part 1, …

Sounds Of Silence: A Study Of Stability And Diversity Of Web Audio Fingerprints, Shekhar Chalise

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Browser fingerprinting presents a grave threat to privacy as it allows user tracking even in private browsing modes. Prior measurement studies on HTML5-based fingerprinting have been limited to Canvas and WebGL but not Web Audio APIs. We aim to fill this gap by conducting the first large-scale systematic study of web audio fingerprints and studying their stability as well as diversity properties. Using MTurk and social media platforms, we collected 8 different audio fingerprints from 694 users.

Firstly, we show that the audio fingerprints are unstable unlike other fingerprinting methods with some users having as many as 20 different fingerprints. …

The Federalist Society And Constitutional Interpretation: Who Gets To Say What The Constitution Says, Deborah L. Toscano

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The Federalist Society was organized in 1982 by conservative law students to counteract what they perceived to be a liberal bias in law schools, the courts, and government administration. Forty years later there is an acknowledgement of a rightward turn in the Supreme Court which scholars have attributed in part to the efforts of the Federalist Society. However, there is still little understanding of just how that change came about. This dissertation takes a step toward understanding that question. Viewing the Federalist Society as the center of a network of lawyers, think tanks, and legal institutions, I examine the influence …

Symbolism Of The Body, Claire E. Ragland

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Using a variety of print mediums and mixed media processes, I create dynamic imagery derived from my own evolving mythology and symbolist language. These highly decorative pieces are rich with motifs and patterns that have emerged through my personal narratives as well as pop cultural movements. The iconic, androgenous figures in my compositions help me tell stories of queer relationality, connection with self and the natural world, and the complexities of my emotional landscape. Using different tactics to create doorways and openings around and within these pieces, I invite the viewer to step into these alternate realities to find layered …

Isolation And Determination Of The Composition And Structural Components That Comprise Dissolved Organic Matter Using Normal Phase Liquid Chromatography, Jonathan A. Long Jr

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A comprehensive understanding of the reactivity associated with organic carbon is critical for recognizing the behavior of newly formed compounds in aquatic environments. In an effort to study the reactivity of complex mixtures, understanding the different processes affiliated with them are key. Understanding the reactivity associated with organic carbon can help to improve chromatographic separation. Using a combination of light and heavy crude oil, a separation procedure was developed to obtain a complete representation of the aromatic subfraction of the crude oil sample. The crude oils were separated into four distinct fractions based on the number of condensed aromatic rings …

Pal, Alex Tronson

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A collection of short fiction set in the Midwest.

Convolutional Neural Networks For Deflate Data Encoding Classification Of High Entropy File Fragments, Nehal Ameen

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Data reconstruction is significantly improved in terms of speed and accuracy by reliable data encoding fragment classification. To date, work on this problem has been successful with file structures of low entropy that contain sparse data, such as large tables or logs. Classifying compressed, encrypted, and random data that exhibit high entropy is an inherently difficult problem that requires more advanced classification approaches. We explore the ability of convolutional neural networks and word embeddings to classify deflate data encoding of high entropy file fragments after establishing ground truth using controlled datasets. Our model is designed to either successfully classify file …

The Kati Module System: Modular Design For Delivering Character Focused Dialogue In Games, Stephen J. Marcel

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The Kati Module System is an interconnected set of programming modules intended to facilitate dynamic text authoring for interactive experiences (for example, games). It is a long-standing goal for interactive experiences to dynamically adapt their textual output based on the user or player's choices and predilections, but to account for this vast possibility space requires an amount of authoring that is frequently untenable, especially for small studios. Advances in machine learning have produced incredible progress in the field of Natural Language Generation (NLG). Though this produces impressive surface level text, it does so without an internal representation that can be …

“The Very Class For Our Country”: How The Cuban Exploitation Of Chinese Coolie Laborers Inspired Louisiana Sugar Planters, Joseph Ledesma

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Sugar planters in Louisiana during Reconstruction needed to replace the enslaved labor force that had fled the plantation system after the Civil War. These Louisiana planters took inspiration from the system of coolie labor in Cuba, wherein exploited Chinese indentured servants would work on sugar plantation alongside enslaved Africans. The white Cuban planters’ goal was to racially dilute their plantation labor force, thus making the existing power structures easier to maintain while avoiding Haitian-style slave uprising. Sugar planters in Louisiana intended to recreate the Cuban system to compel Freedmen to work for less than their worth by importing Chinese laborers, …

Co-Localization Analysis Of Bivariate Spatial Point Pattern, Stephan C. Komladzei

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Spatial point pattern analysis investigates the localizations of random events in a defined spatial space usually conveyed in the form of images. Spatial distribution of two types of events observed in these images reflects their underlying interactions, which is the focus of co-localization analysis in spatial statistics. Malkusch et al. (Malkusch, et al., 2012) recently proposed the Coordinate-based Co-localization (CBC) method for co-localization analysis. However, the method did not incorporate edge corrections for point proportions and ignored their correlations over nested incremental observational regions. Hence, it yields false positive results for even complete spatial random distributions. In this research, we …

The Wallpaper Man And Other Stories, Allyson M. Langhoff

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In this collection of short stories, female-driven storylines in both speculative and realistic fiction focus on the themes of feminism, becoming one’s own hero, and the pain of lost love.

The Art Of Heritage And Mortality, Barbara Johanna Mileto

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Through my art I explore the formation of cultural and personal identity addressing the importance of heritage, ancestors, and religion in Latin-American culture, while I develop my unique deities and spiritual space, creating my own iconography. The pieces are strongly autobiographical, using my family members, and frequently lived experience as a subject. Furthermore, I am drawn to the circle of life and productive failures - beginnings, deaths, and transitions. - My work integrates two-dimensional and three-dimensional mediums, ranging from photography and printmaking to assemblage and textiles, video and digital.

The Gravel In Her Voice, Swiss (Kierra) B. Mccall

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This work explores the relationship between oral poetry and written poetry, and is written with a heavy blend of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). This work seeks to interrogate the notion that there should inherently be a rigid dichotomy between written poetry and spoken word poetry, but rather aims to show there is a relationship of mutual seepage between the distinct entities. There is also an aim of interrogating the belief that within American English there are not a multitude of dialects that are, too, worthy of academic study and poetic focus. Upon defense, this collection serves as a language …

Mapping The Impacts Of Political Risk In Corporate Finance: A Firm-Level Diversification And Debt-Maturity Perspective, Mohammad Sydul Karim

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In the first chapter, using political corruption conviction data from the U.S. Department of Justice, I examine the impact of local corruption on firms’ debt maturity structure while exploring both demand-side and supply-side explanations. My results support the demand-side story and indicate that firms located in high corruption areas utilize less short-term debt to mitigate liquidity and refinancing risks. Consistent with this, I find the effect is more pronounced among firms with smaller size, lower asset redeployability, and higher volatility. My findings remain robust to the inclusion of an array of controls expected to influence debt maturity preferences as well …

Odd Botany, Isaac G. Lauritsen

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Odd Botany engages with the concepts of the wild and the domestic in poetry to create whimsical, humorous poems that contend with the darker aspects of living. Varied in form, many of these poems are persona poems and use animals other than humans as speakers. Using distortion, surprise, and word-play, the poems attempt to create a psychic-turbulence to be pleasurable and enlivening to the reader.

Victims To Victors: Women Reclaiming Conflict Management In Sub-Saharan Africa, Joy N. Ballard

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Women in sub-Saharan Africa are often viewed as the victims of the conflict around them. This view discredits the hundreds of women who are serving in legislative and executive branches across the region. This research investigates if women in positions of power make more peaceful decisions in times of conflict than their male counterparts. Using negative binomial regression methods this research examines the percentages of women in legislative and executive branches to number of conflict days in a year and number of peace agreements signed. This study found that as the percentage of women in office rise the number of …