Digital Commons Network^™

An Evaluation Of Multiple Branch Predictor And Trace Cache Advanced Fetch Unit Designs For Dynamically Scheduled Superscalar Processors, Slade S. Maurer

LSU Master's Theses

Semiconductor feature size continues to decrease permitting superscalar microprocessors to continue to increase the number of functional units available for execution. As the instruction issue width increases beyond the five instruction average basic block size of integer programs, more than one basic block must be issued per cycle to continue to increase instructions per cycle (IPC) performance. Researchers have created methods of fetching instructions beyond the first taken branch to overcome the bottleneck created by the limitations of conventional single branch predictors. We compare the performance of the multiple branch prediction (MBP) and trace cache (TC) fetch unit optimization methods. …

Optimal Test Case Selection For Multi-Component Software System, Praveen Babu Kysetti

LSU Master's Theses

The omnipresence of software has forced upon the industry to produce efficient software in a short time. These requirements can be met by code reusability and software testing. Code reusability is achieved by developing software as components/modules rather than a single block. Software coding teams are becoming large to satiate the need of massive requirements. Large teams could work easily if software is developed in a modular fashion. It would be pointless to have software that would crash often. Testing makes the software more reliable. Modularity and reliability is the need of the day. Testing is usually carried out using …

A Comparison Of A High-Resolution Survey And A Three-Dimensional Seismic Survey In A Feature-Rich Region Of The Green Canyon Area, Gulf Of Mexico, Bruce Miles Samuel

LSU Master's Theses

Recent advances in Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) technology have revolutionized the positioning and accuracy of high-resolution deep sea mapping tools. Geologic hazard and engineering surveys by AUV’s are producing high-resolution data sets of a quality that has never before been seen. Three-dimensional (3D) seismic data, though traditionally used for only deep subsurface mapping of large areas, is now being reprocessed at a higher resolution and utilized in well site investigations and geologic hazard assessments. This study makes a comparison between a 3D seismic survey and an AUV high-resolution survey in order to determine the strengths and weaknesses of both of …

The Portrayals Of Minority Characters In Entertaining Animated Children's Programs, Siobhan Elizabeth Smith

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this study is to note, categorize, and discuss the stereotypes of African Americans in animated children’s cartoons. The purpose is also to compare them to see how they changed. A content analysis of two cartoons finds that characters do act in stereotypical ways. A quantitative analysis of 76 cartoons supports these findings. Overall, The Proud Family, a cartoon of the 21st century, is more stereotypical than Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, a cartoon from 30 years ago. Though primary characters display the same amount of stereotypical behavior, secondary characters show an increase in the amount of …

Development Of A Neural Network Approach For The Assessment Of The Performance Of Traffic Sign Retroreflectivity, Nagajyothi Swargam

LSU Master's Theses

The goal of the research was to develop a new predictive tool for assessing the performance of traffic sign retroreflectivity and to compare the developed tool with the existing linear regression models. Retroreflectivity decreases as sign sheeting ages. Currently Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (LADOTD) replace signs with low reflectivity based on driver complaints. This practice might have resulted in premature sign replacement (removal of signs with several years of in-service life still remaining) or in non-replacement of signs that are not in compliance with LADOTD minimum reflectivity standards. In this study, both neural network models and regression models …

Black Women Writing Black Mother Figures: Reading Black Motherhood In Their Eyes Were Watching God And Meridian, Alexis Durell Powe

LSU Master's Theses

This research explores connections between Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and Alice Walker's Meridian, two important novels in the African American canon rarely studied in conjunction. I examine the novels' portrayals of Black mothers, comparing and contrasting Nanny Crawford and Mrs. Hill as central mother figures. I also examine Leafy Crawford, Meridian Hill, and other minor Black mother/women characters. Though Hurston's and Walker's presentations of Black mothers differ, both authors work toward dismantling traditional stereotypes of Black motherhood, particularly the Black superwoman stereotype, and, thereby, ultimately redefining Black womanhood. In defending this claim, I explore Hurston's …

The Topography Of Syntactic Islands, Danielle Rachel Alfandre

LSU Master's Theses

The Adjunct Island Constraint proposed by Ross (1967) together with Chomsky’s Barriers (1986) are not sufficient to account for the ungrammaticality of wh-extraction out of adjunct clauses, nor do they address the instances of grammatical extraction out of such constructions. Extraction out of Adjunct Islands is now completely predictable using a combination of Chomsky’s Minimalist Program (1995) and Kehler’s Coherence Theory (2002). The combination of these two theories gives an account of both the grammatical and ungrammatical instances of wh- extraction out of adjuncts. The principles of the Minimalist Program together with evidence from Old English adverbial clauses determines the …

The Importance Of Fluent Component Skills In Mathematical Comprehension, Chisato Komatsu

LSU Master's Theses

The primary question to be addressed by the present study was whether fluency on component skills is important in the development of overall competency in mathematics. Reading fluency has served as an excellent predictor of one’s reading comprehension. However, few studies have investigated whether the fluency on component skills is essential in the development of overall competency in mathematics. In fact, there has been a push for instructional strategies to deemphasize the importance component skills. In the current study, 140 students in second- through fourth- grade classrooms from general education participated. Each student took three curriculum-based measurement probes (a single-skill …

Louisiana State University Nasalance Protocol Standardization, Kathryn Ruth Kendrick

LSU Master's Theses

It was the purpose of this study to obtain nasalance values using the Nasometer and a resonance evaluation created at the Louisiana State University (LSU) Speech and Hearing Clinic. The Nasometer was used to measure the amount of nasal acoustic energy in the speech of 40 normal young adults during sustained vowel production, consonant vowel reduplications, and connected speech using the Rainbow Passage. Means and standard deviations are presented for the individual speech tasks and according to gender. Nasalance values for the sustained vowels were significantly higher for the high front vowel /i/ than any other vowel, and the lowest …

The Gender Gap In Political Knowledge: A Comparison Of Political Knowledge Levels In The United States, Canada, And Great Britain, Emily Marie Guynan

LSU Master's Theses

Previous research indicates that there is a gender gap in political knowledge. I examine whether the gender gap exists in the United States and what the significant determining variables are aside from gender. I also examine whether the gender gap exists in other countries and whether the variables that are significant in the United States are significant in other countries. I examine political knowledge levels in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. By utilizing crosstabulations and multiple regression models, I find that a gender gap does exist in the United States as well as in Canada and Great Britain. …

Efficacy Of Prepartum Intramammary Lactating Cow Treatment In Dairy Heifers, Christopher B. Norman

LSU Master's Theses

Mastitis in prepartum dairy heifers has been recognized as a significant economic problem for the dairy industry. Intramammary infusion of cephapirin sodium was completed in 20 treatment animals and the results were compared to 25 non-treated control animals. Bacteriological data from the quarter milk samples were used to determine and compare initial infection rates and cure rates following calving between treatment and control groups. Comparisons were also made between groups for differences in reproductive performance, milk yield, somatic cell count and milk ketone concentration. Milk yield did not differ between groups for either DHIA monthly average kg/day, 305 day actual …

I-Tal Foodways: Nourishing Rastafarian Bodies, Mandy Garner Dickerson

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis takes a close look at the lived world of Jamaican Rastafarians through the lens of food-related practices and preferences, working to define the group's characteristic strategies for maintaining wellness and illuminating their tastes and sensibilities. It strives to evoke a sensorial and discursive awareness of the activities through which Rastafarians nourish and heal their physical and social bodies, by focusing on ways in which they produce and use I-tal food-medicines. Rastafarian taste for I-tal has developed alongside collective engagement with the valorization and revitalization of traditional knowledge about health and land use. In addition to providing sites for …

Bees Associated With Louisiana Longleaf Pine Savannas, Chanda Sara Bartholomew

LSU Master's Theses

Longleaf pine savannas are perhaps the most threatened ecosystems in North America. Despite a well documented and highly diverse flora, little has been published on insects in general and, in particular, on bees that provide the valuable service of plant pollination. Thus, the aims of this study were to: 1) survey bees found in two savanna types in southeastern Louisiana; and 2) contrast the diversity and species composition of these two savanna types. An ancillary goal was to contrast two collecting protocols for bees in the savanna habitat. Overall, a total of 3,407 bees were collected representing 125 species. Of …

Paul Durand-Ruel And The Market For Early Modernism, Marci Regan

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis examines the art sales and marketing of Impressionism in the late nineteenth century, focusing on the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. Throughout the nineteenth century in Paris, the Académie des Beaux-Arts wrote the history of art by supporting certain artists who followed its ideas of what art should look like. The artists that the Academy chose to support had lucrative careers; they were offered commissions from both the church and state to paint grand historical pictures. Throughout the nineteenth century and until World War II, Paris was the artistic center of the world, and the birthplace of many avant-garde groups. …

Tissue Interactions With Lasers And Liquid Nitrogen: A Novel Cryopreservation Method, Deepak Kandra

LSU Master's Theses

The importance of the imposed cooling rate in cryopreserving native cells and tissues has been long recognized in the field of cryobiology. When biological tissues are subjected to cooling rates in excess of thousands of degree C per minute, the characteristic structural and physical manifestations of the ice formed are such that the traditional damage due to ice formation at lower cooling rates are suppressed. Hence, achieving high cooling rates in tissues and cells of biologically relevant sizes (mm’s and cm’s) has been a long standing research problem. In the present study, we present a novel technique to achieve high …

Detection And Mapping Of Quantitative Trait Loci That Determine Responsiveness, Janet L. Mueller, E. A. Ellenberger, Linda K. Vaughn, John K. Belknap, Raymond M. Quock

Biomedical Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Exposure to 70% N₂O evokes a robust antinociceptive effect in C57BL/6 (B6) but not in DBA/2 (D2) inbred mice. This study was conducted to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) in the mouse genome that might determine responsiveness to N₂O. Offspring from the F₂ generation bred from B6 and D2 progenitors exhibited a broad range of responsiveness to N₂O antinociception as determined by the acetic acid-induced abdominal constriction test. QTL analysis was then used to dissect this continuous trait distribution into component loci, and to map them to broad chromosomal regions. To this end, …

Mendel's Legacy: The Origin Of Classical Genetics, Michael Dietrich

Dartmouth Scholarship

Review of Mendel's Legacy: The Origin of Classical Genetics by Elof Axel Carlson, 2004

Identification Of Soybean Cultivars Tolerance To Waterlogging Through Analyses Of Leaf Nitrogen Concentration, Curt Jude Riche

LSU Master's Theses

Irrigation to soybean can cause unintended water to pond on the soil surface for more than a desired amount of time. Most soybean acreage in Louisiana is planted on poorly drained clay soils and waterlogging of soybean can cause substantial yield reductions. Although cultural practices are available for ameliorating the adverse effects of waterlogging, little is known about genotypic tolerance, therefore our objectives were to determine if percent leaf nitrogen concentration could be used as a criterion for screening for cultivar tolerance to waterlogging and to identify waterlogging tolerance among 48 commercially available soybean cultivars. Forty-eight soybean cultivars were planted …

In Vitro Evaluation Of The Securos Cranial Cruciate Ligament Repair System And Fluorocarbon Leader Line For Use As Lateral Fabella-Tibial Sutures, Max Nielsen Banwell

LSU Master's Theses

Cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) rupture is a common injury in the dog and major cause of degenerative joint disease. The pathophysiology of CCL rupture in the dog is well described. Osteoarthritis secondary to CCL rupture causes severe pain and lameness. There are many surgical techniques accepted for dogs with CCL rupture. A commonly performed technique is an extracapsular repair with a lateral fabella-tibial suture (LFS) using large diameter nylon leader line (NLL). Mechanical demands placed upon the LFS are high requiring the material used be able to withstand a high amount of force, undergo minimal elongation, and have a high …

Watermarking Using Decimal Sequences, Navneet Kumar Mandhani

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis introduces the use of decimal sequences in watermarking to hide information for authentication. The underlying system is based on code division multiple access (CDMA), which is a form of spread spectrum communication. Different algorithms for the use of decimal sequences have been formulated for use in black and white images. The watermark is spread across the carrier image by using the d- sequences of optimal period and retrieval is made by the use of correlation. Matlab version 6.5 was used to implement the algorithms discussed in this thesis. The advantage of using d-sequences over PN sequences is that …

Heidegger's Relationship To Kantian And Post-Kantian Thought, Ryan S. Hellmers

LSU Master's Theses

I provide a close analysis of truth and freedom in Heidegger’s work during the passage from Being and Time (Sein und Zeit) in 1927 to the Contributions to Philosophy (Beiträge zur Philosophie) in 1938. This analysis demonstrates the passage from a Kantian style transcendental analysis of the self to an Idealist inspired study of being-historical thinking. Throughout this shift in thinking, the work of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling is shown to play an increasingly decisive role in Heidegger’s thought, finally leading him to an understanding of the self in terms of freedom, community, culture, and history that carries important …

Evaluation Of Rough Brucella Strains As Vaccines For Brucellosis And Pseudorabies In Swine, Lorraine Harrow Molin

LSU Master's Theses

Brucellosis and pseudorabies lead to abortion in pregnant sows and are perpetuated by feral swine reservoirs. A multivalent oral vaccine for these diseases would improve vaccination and eradication programs worldwide. Previous studies have shown that the rough attenuated Brucella strains RB51 and VTRS1, when administered subcutaneously to swine, stimulate host immune responses, transiently colonize tissues, and provide partial protection against virulent B. suis infection in pregnant sows. A plasmid encoding for the pseudorabies virus glycoprotein D (PRV gD) has also been added to these strains as part of this project. This study evaluates the use of these strains as oral …

"Ya Know Frenchy, You Talk A Broken Language": An Analysis Of Syllable-Coda Phonetic Realizations In Creole African American Vernacular English, Rachel Rose Mentz

LSU Master's Theses

Creole African American Vernacular English or CAAVE is a variety of English spoken by African Americans of French ancestry who live primarily in the French Triangle of Louisiana. Dubois and Horvath (2003b) have previously published on glide absence in CAAVE and have suggested that CAAVE is a unique dialect of English. They attribute CAAVE’s glide absence to the contact of Creole African Americans with diverse groups of English speakers and not to language interference from French. This research further pursues these hypotheses by studying the phonological realization of word final syllable-codas for six old male speakers of CAAVE. The reduction …

The Effects Of Nutrient Enrichment On The Decomposition Of Belowground Organic Matter In A Sagittaria Lancifolia - Dominated Oligohaline Marsh, Kristen Raye Laursen

LSU Master's Theses

Wetlands improve water quality through sedimentation and the uptake of excess nutrients. As human population increases in the coastal zone, wetlands receive greater nutrient inputs. These additional nutrients may accelerate microbial activity, leading to faster decomposition rates. This decomposition could exceed belowground organic matter production, resulting in a net reduction in soil organic matter accumulation and vertical marsh accretion. The effects of nutrient enrichment on belowground organic matter decomposition in subtropical marshes have received little attention. As such, this research examined the effects of four levels of nitrogen combined with two levels of phosphorus enrichment on belowground decomposition through the …

Accelerating The Transition To A Sustainable Society, Christopher Brian Bennett

LSU Master's Theses

As human populations increase, available land and resources decrease, and we begin to better understand the impacts of human activity on the environment, a strategy for human development that meets both the needs of society and the environment is being increasingly called upon. This movement has come to be known as sustainability. While this term is prevalent in the design and planning communities, it is important that this concept be brought to the attention of the general public, whom will ultimately decide the success or failure of this scheme. The question then is how to begin implementation of sustainable practices, …

"Don't Pooh-Pooh Our Poo Poo": Penalty, Subsidy, And Refusal To Fund In The Aftermath Of National Endowment For The Arts V. Finley, James Gaddy

LSU Master's Theses

Legal scholars said the National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley decision would create a "chilling effect" in government subsidy programs, and it unlawfully expanded the government speech doctrine. By analyzing cases that subsequently use Finley for a substantive part of their rationale, this article argues the opposite: the courts have rejected the government's attempts to interpret the decision as one that allows viewpoint discrimination and have not allowed the government to further a broad reading of the decision. The article also argues that, under the government speech doctrine, Finley provides the controlling precedent for truly "hybrid speech" cases where …

Lost In "Conceptual Space" : Metaphors Of Conceptual Integration, L. David Ritchie

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Conceptual integration theory (Fauconnier & Turner, 1998, 2002) is re-examined in the light of recent criticisms (e.g., Gibbs, 2000, 2001). It is argued that the assumption of four independent "cognitive spaces" enters the model primarily as an entailment of the "space," "blending," and "construction" metaphors, leads to unnecessary ambiguity, and works against statement of the theory in a form that supports derivation of testable hypotheses. Several examples from Fauconnier and Turner (2002) are analyzed to show that they can be interpreted more simply, without need of four separate "spaces." Suggestions are made for reformulating conceptual integration theory without the problematic …

The Capital Asset Pricing Model: Theory And Evidence, Eugene F. Fama, Kenneth R. French

Dartmouth Scholarship

The capital asset pricing model (CAPM) of William Sharpe (1964) and John Lintner (1965) marks the birth of asset pricing theory (resulting in a Nobel Prize for Sharpe in 1990). Before their breakthrough, there were no asset pricing models built from first principles about the nature of tastes and investment opportunities and with clear testable predictions about risk and return. Four decades later, the CAPM is still widely used in applications, such as estimating the cost of equity capital for firms and evaluating the performance of managed portfolios. And it is the centerpiece, indeed often the only asset pricing model …

Portland State Magazine, Portland State University. Office Of University Communications

Portland State Magazine

PSU’s alumni magazine, published 2-3 times a year. In this issue: PSU experts look at the high cost of housing criminals; mussels, snail, crabs, and other transoceanic hitchhikers cause billions of dollars in damage; the fantastic and supernatural are Hollywood writer Mark Verheiden’s specialties; new coach and hearty sailors bring recognition to Sailing Club; record and music-making in the digital age; and more.

Satisfaction With Provider Communication Among Spanish-Speaking Medicaid Enrollees, David M. Mosen, Matthew J. Carlson, Leo S. Morales, Pamela P. Hanes

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

OBJECTIVE: To determine if differences between English- and Spanish-speaking parents in ratings of their children's health care can be explained by need for interpretive services.

METHODS: Using the Consumer Assessment of Health Plans Survey-Child-Survey (CAHPS), reports about provider communication were compared among 3 groups of parents enrolled in a Medicaid managed care health plan: 1) English speakers, 2) Spanish speakers with no self-reported need for interpretive services, and 3) Spanish speakers with self-reported need for interpretive services. Parents were asked to report how well their providers 1) listened carefully to what was being said, 2) explained things in a way …