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2007

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Nueva Orleans: Hispanics In New Orleans, The Catholic Church, And Imagining The New Hispanic Community, Katie Judith Berchak Jan 2007

Nueva Orleans: Hispanics In New Orleans, The Catholic Church, And Imagining The New Hispanic Community, Katie Judith Berchak

LSU Master's Theses

New Orleans, Louisiana, is a city with a rich Hispanic history which is often overlooked. Likewise, the role the Catholic Church has played in assisting the immigrant groups that have settled in New Orleans in the building of their communities has also often been ignored. The first part of this work will seek to trace the different Hispanic groups that have come to the city, their often unacknowledged legacies, and examine what role the Catholic Church played in their communities and history. During Spanish rule of colonial Louisiana from 1762 to 1803, Spanish colonists and recruits from the Canary Islands …

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Understanding The New York Rabies Epizootic 1985-2005, David Dorrell Jan 2007

Understanding The New York Rabies Epizootic 1985-2005, David Dorrell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Surveillance data are an important part of medical geography. These data are used to produce much of the analyses that define the subdiscipline. It is understood that surveillance data may contain biases, but there have only been limited studies devoted to determining in what ways the data are not representative of actual disease prevalence. New York was selected for this research for several reasons. First, it has a strong rabies data set. Second, it has a centralized system of licensing animal and dog control officers. Third, it is well-represented in terms of local media. This dissertation attempts to better understand …

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Dr. Frankenstein Was A Designer: Methods For Educating Gen H--The Hybrid Design Student, Patricia Ferguson Vining Jan 2007

Dr. Frankenstein Was A Designer: Methods For Educating Gen H--The Hybrid Design Student, Patricia Ferguson Vining

LSU Master's Theses

Business Week recently launched an innovation and design quarterly entitled In, as well as a Website section specifically dedicated to design and innovation. Fast Company, with its Third Annual Masters of Design issue, and Fortune have also added significant design content to their publications. The business world appears to have discovered design as a vital strategic tool and economic force. Globalization and the Internet knowledge explosion have changed our world in unprecedented ways. Design thinking, which was previously relegated to dealing with issues such as form and function, has become the twenty-first century methodology for the development of new business …

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Investigation Of Utility Of Delta-T Theta Probe For Obtaining Surficial Moisture Measurements On Beaches, Phillip P. Schmutz Jan 2007

Investigation Of Utility Of Delta-T Theta Probe For Obtaining Surficial Moisture Measurements On Beaches, Phillip P. Schmutz

LSU Master's Theses

Recent studies have reported on the use of a new device to measure beach 'surface' moisture content, the Delta-T Theta Probe. However, the sensor length (6.0 cm) is too long for measurement of true surface moisture conditions. This study investigated the reliability of the Theta Probe as sensor length is reduced to lengths of 1.5, 1.0, and 0.5 cm. Field investigations were conducted at sites in Texas and North Carolina, in order to evaluate the influence of differing sediment sizes on probe output. It was found that calibration R^2 values remained high and only a minimal increase in standard error …

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Strategies For Establishing Spartina Alterniflora On Newly Constructed Marsh Terraces In Coastal Louisiana, Ashley Wilson Mullens Jan 2007

Strategies For Establishing Spartina Alterniflora On Newly Constructed Marsh Terraces In Coastal Louisiana, Ashley Wilson Mullens

LSU Master's Theses

Marsh terracing is an innovative restoration technique being used in shallow, open water marshes in coastal Louisiana. When properly constructed and planted with an applicable plant species, terraces promote sediment deposition and accumulation by reducing wave energy. Although used extensively for marsh creation, little published information is available on techniques for establishing vegetation on marsh terraces. The goal of this research was to determine the optimal planting season and most effective plant growth form of Spartina alterniflora for establishing vegetation on newly constructed marsh terraces. Study objectives were to: 1) compare survival and growth rates of different plant growth forms …

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Spatial And Temporal Distribution Of Solar Radiation In Louisiana, Michael Ulric Kemp Jan 2007

Spatial And Temporal Distribution Of Solar Radiation In Louisiana, Michael Ulric Kemp

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this study is to examine temporal and spatial trends in surface global horizontal solar radiation in Louisiana using a 30-year dataset (1961-1990) of the four stations in Louisiana from the National Solar Radiation Database (NSRD) and a 6-year dataset (2001-2006) of the 25 stations in the Louisiana Agriclimatic Information System (LAIS). Three of the four NSRD stations exhibit a downward linear trend in surface solar radiation over the 30-year period of record, similar to the global trends uncovered in previous studies. Only one station exhibits a slightly upward trend. Surface solar radiation exhibits a positive correlation with …

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Population Change And Social Vulnerability In The Wake Of Disaster: The Case Of Hurricanes Katrina And Rita, Candice A. Myers Jan 2007

Population Change And Social Vulnerability In The Wake Of Disaster: The Case Of Hurricanes Katrina And Rita, Candice A. Myers

LSU Master's Theses

Previous sociological research on natural disasters has highlighted how various dimensions of social vulnerability influence the impact of, and recovery from, such disasters. This research contributes to the literature by examining population change in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, with an explicit focus on how social vulnerability moderates this relationship. Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, I construct a macro-level Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) for the impacted region and then use regression analysis to explore how various dimensions of social vulnerability are related to population change in the six months following the storms. The results reveal a …

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The Urban Development Of Spanish Colonial Pensacola, 1781-1821, Harry James Wilson Jan 2007

The Urban Development Of Spanish Colonial Pensacola, 1781-1821, Harry James Wilson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Pensacola evolved through the second Spanish period (1781-1821) from a fledgling military outpost to an increasingly complex urban center. Local and regional demographic trends and environmental conditions prompted Pensacola to grow in a manner that differed from other Spanish colonial urban centers and created in Pensacola an unusual class structure and residential patterning. The primary goal of this dissertation is to show that Pensacola’s residential and landowning patterns never experienced the degree of socioeconomic residential clustering noted in other Spanish colonial urban centers. Social residential clustering was unusual in Spanish Pensacola, and socioeconomic classes and land values varied from lot …

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The Genealogy Of Morals: Contemporary Empirical Accounts, Franklin Donald Worrell Jan 2007

The Genealogy Of Morals: Contemporary Empirical Accounts, Franklin Donald Worrell

LSU Master's Theses

In the late twentieth century, moral realists began to resurrect a type of argument that emerged during the Enlightenment. These realists appealed to moral progress as evidence for moral facts, and their arguments took the form of inferences to the best explanation. Recently, the argument style has emerged again. This time, the inference to the best explanation is being used by empirically-informed sentimentalists to argue that their theories can provide accounts of moral evolution that have greater explanatory and predictive power than the accounts offered by the moral realists. This thesis examines the arguments to the best explanation of such …

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Dragons Behind Glass: Views Of China And Japan In Three American Museums, Kristina Elaine Polizzi Jan 2007

Dragons Behind Glass: Views Of China And Japan In Three American Museums, Kristina Elaine Polizzi

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis will focus on three museums: the American Museum of Natural History in New York, New York, the Mobile Museum of Art in Mobile, Alabama and the Morikami Museum in Del Ray Beach, Florida. Overall the museums took surprisingly different approaches to designing their exhibits. The American Museum of Natural History gave a general overview of Japan and China. The Mobile Museum of Art focused only on pottery and the Morikami Museum focused on the Japanese immigrants that settled in Del Ray Beach. Differences and similarities of these museums and what these exhibits tell the viewer about the two …

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Unwelcome Neighbors? Industrial Growth And Water Pollution In Lake Charles, Louisiana, 1940-1960, Jonathan Zachary Delaune Jan 2007

Unwelcome Neighbors? Industrial Growth And Water Pollution In Lake Charles, Louisiana, 1940-1960, Jonathan Zachary Delaune

LSU Master's Theses

This paper focuses on the industrialization of Lake Charles, Louisiana during World War Two and the resulting shifts in pollution-related policy and public perceptions of pollution. A major impetus for the industrialization of the South was federal investment during the war. This is especially true for Lake Charles, a city where industrial agglomeration began with war-time financing of manufacturing plants to combat the shortages of aviation fuel and rubber. By tracing the public response to offensive pollution and the resulting shift in public policy, this paper will reveal a fundamental conflict between development-minded government institutions and a population interested in …

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Parenting Experiences Of Eastern European Immigrant Professionals In The U.S.: A Qualitative Study, Olena Nesteruk Jan 2007

Parenting Experiences Of Eastern European Immigrant Professionals In The U.S.: A Qualitative Study, Olena Nesteruk

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In 2004, the nation’s foreign-born population numbered approximately 35 million comprising about 12% of the total U.S. population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005). Most studies of immigrants primarily research the two largest immigrant groups, those from Latin America and Asia, while little has been done with the less visible population of immigrants from Eastern Europe. Also, we know much about the experiences of low-income immigrants of color, but little about the experiences of white immigrant families in the professional ranks. A qualitative study was conducted with immigrant professionals from Eastern Europe to explore their experiences with raising children in a new …

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Local Norms And Innovations Within The System Of Locative Prepositions In Cajun French, Sibylle Maria Noetzel Jan 2007

Local Norms And Innovations Within The System Of Locative Prepositions In Cajun French, Sibylle Maria Noetzel

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Cajun French presents variable use of linguistic features, as any other variety of French does. Many Cajun French features are considered as deviant from the French norm or triggered by attrition although fluent speakers of Cajun French have always used them. In this sociolinguistic study, we analyze the use of locative prepositions. We add two important dimensions to existing studies: real-time evidence for a diachronic descriptive perspective, and a methodological tool, measuring the degree of exposure to French (MDI). This approach allows us to establish the local prepositional norm of Cajun French and phenomena due to attrition. Large amounts of …

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The Effects Of Psychological Factors On Media Usage: An Examination Of Immigrants' Media Use Patterns, Motives And Acculturation In The United States, Suping Zhang Jan 2007

The Effects Of Psychological Factors On Media Usage: An Examination Of Immigrants' Media Use Patterns, Motives And Acculturation In The United States, Suping Zhang

LSU Master's Theses

Earlier studies have provided evidence for the importance of mass media in the acculturation process of immigrants. The current study intends to further investigate acculturation by exploring the influential factors in immigrants’ mass communication activities. A survey has been conducted among 208 participants from diverse ethnic backgrounds in the Baton Rouge area. Having examined the mass media and Internet consumption of the respondents, this study finds that psychological factors, not demographic backgrounds, are the primary influential variables in predicting immigrants’ media use patterns. According to this study, respondents’ stronger adaptive personality and acculturation motivation would lead to more consumption of …

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How To Rewrite Torah: The Case For Proto-Sectarian Ideology In The Reworked Pentateuch (4qrp), Roger S. Nam Jan 2007

How To Rewrite Torah: The Case For Proto-Sectarian Ideology In The Reworked Pentateuch (4qrp), Roger S. Nam

Faculty Publications - Portland Seminary

This study challenges the initial categorization of the Reworked Pentateuch (4Q364-4Q367) as another non-sectarian textual witness to the Torah. A close analysis of the manuscripts suggests that certain unaligned readings likely ret1ect some of the sectarian ideas of the community. Other variants evoke both content and ideology of the authoritative "Rewritten Bible" documents, the Temple Scroll and Jubilees. These characteristics imply that 4QRP contains deliberate reworking of biblical material that is in line with sectarian ideology, in contrast to a mere mechanical copying of the text. Though the scroll may not be strictly sectarian, at the very least, it is …

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Bulletin: General Catalog Issue 2007-2008, Portland State University Jan 2007

Bulletin: General Catalog Issue 2007-2008, Portland State University

Bulletin & Curriculum Change Documents

No abstract provided.

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Curriculum Change 2007-2008, Portland State University Jan 2007

Curriculum Change 2007-2008, Portland State University

Bulletin & Curriculum Change Documents

No abstract provided.

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Reinventing The Sword: A Cultural Comparison Of The Development Of The Sword In Response To The Advent Of Firearms In Spain And Japan, Charles Edward Ethridge Jan 2007

Reinventing The Sword: A Cultural Comparison Of The Development Of The Sword In Response To The Advent Of Firearms In Spain And Japan, Charles Edward Ethridge

LSU Master's Theses

Swords have been used throughout history as weapons of war, as symbols of power and wealth and as national and religious icons. Unlike other weapons however, the sword did not simply fade into the background as technological improvements caused the martial value to lessen. The primary purpose of this paper is to look at the development of the sword as an object of art, specifically in the countries of Spain and Japan, after the invention of the firearm. A brief history of the development of the sword from the earliest manifestations through the Iron Age is provided as way of …

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Hurricane Modeling In Gis: An Investigation Of Threshold Storm Events Affecting Special Medical Needs Populations In Coastal Louisiana, Kathryn Emily Streva Jan 2007

Hurricane Modeling In Gis: An Investigation Of Threshold Storm Events Affecting Special Medical Needs Populations In Coastal Louisiana, Kathryn Emily Streva

LSU Master's Theses

Recent hurricane events in coastal Louisiana have emphasized the severe vulnerability of medical special needs (MSN) patients during flood disasters. MSN populations may be comprised of hospital, nursing home or hospice patients; the physically or mentally disabled; medically-dependent individuals requiring life-sustaining equipment or medicines; and frail elderly. Over 150 hospital and nursing home fatalities resulted from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. More than four hundred elderly over the age of seventy perished. Chronic diseases and mental health illness were among the top conditions reported in field hospitals, emergency rooms and shelters immediately following the storm. Louisiana MSN facilities and residences …

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Edward Said And The Study Of Music, Kofi Agawu Jan 2007

Edward Said And The Study Of Music, Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

My first encounter with Edward Said’s work was in the 1980s with the book, Beginnings: Intention and Method (1975). I was exploring a semiotic approach to late 18th-century music, specifically, a beginning-middle-ending paradigm (an Aristotelian paradigm) that seemed to me to capture the rhetorical intentions of Classic composers. Said’s wide-ranging reflections and ruminations on beginnings – as inaugural moments, as sites for the establishment of difference, as authorially privileged moments, and as "first steps in the intentional production of meaning" – proved inspiring. My enduring impression of him at the time was that he was a very good …

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Geoaesthetics: New Orleans, Landscape, And Eros, Robert Frodeman Jan 2007

Geoaesthetics: New Orleans, Landscape, And Eros, Robert Frodeman

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The success of contemporary society in producing knowledge serves to highlight the breakdown between knowledge production and its use. New Orleans and Katrina offer one example of this breakdown. All the knowledge necessary for acting beforehand was available; the problem was not one of knowledge but of will. Geoaesthetics, appropriating the erotic nature of our relationship to the land, is offered as an inter- and transdisciplinary means for making disciplinary knowledge more pertinent.

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Implied World Views In Pictures: Reflections From A Cognitive Psychological And Anthropological Point Of View, Michael Ranta Jan 2007

Implied World Views In Pictures: Reflections From A Cognitive Psychological And Anthropological Point Of View, Michael Ranta

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

In traditional art history, iconological attempts to analyze visual works of art by treating their formal and semantic features as symptoms of more general, implied world views or cultures have occurred rather frequently. Still, such attempts have been criticized for permitting subjective and non-verifiable interpretations. In this paper, however, I will argue that (i) pictorial works of art indeed imply wider world views or schemata, and (ii) that our comprehension of these schemata can be explained by taking into account recent research within cognitive psychology. More specifically, I will argue that intelligence partly consists of the storage and retrieval of …

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Changing The Subject: First-Person Narration In And Out Of The Classroom, Susan Friedman Jan 2007

Changing The Subject: First-Person Narration In And Out Of The Classroom, Susan Friedman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The effectiveness of first-person narration for self-transformation and social change is indicated by exploring connections between three emergent discourses: illness narratives and memoirs by rape survivors in which the subject speaks from a privileged yet socially marginalized position about life-altering experiences; clinical discourse that elaborates treatment methods for empowering trauma survivors and helping them reconnect with the social world; and scholarly discourse that reflects on the relationship between trauma, self-representation, witnessing, and recovery. Post-Foucauldian theories of life-writing illuminate how the author-subjects of survivor narratives discursively reconstruct their shattered subjectivity in a therapeutic relationship with themselves and their readers. Cognitive and …

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Comprehensive School Reform In The Wake Of No Child Left Behind: Teacher Perceptions In Dodgeland, Allyson Regina Haag Jan 2007

Comprehensive School Reform In The Wake Of No Child Left Behind: Teacher Perceptions In Dodgeland, Allyson Regina Haag

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an analysis of teacher perceptions of the implementation of their school's comprehensive school reform, and the George W. Bush administration's federal educational policy, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Data were collected by a research team as a part of the National Longitudinal Evaluation of Comprehensive School Reform (NLECSR), a project under the direction of the American Institutes for Research (AIR). The thesis is a supplemental qualitative analysis by the author who was part of the NLECSR research team from 2004 through 2005. The NLECSR had a quantitative component (called the Core Study) consisting of a …

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High-Stakes Testing In Florida: Media Portrayals And Parental Realities, Jennifer Gilroy Hunsecker Jan 2007

High-Stakes Testing In Florida: Media Portrayals And Parental Realities, Jennifer Gilroy Hunsecker

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 1998, Florida implemented a system of standardized testing known as the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). While initially designed as one among many tools to assess student and school progress, the FCAT has become a high-stakes test. Schools whose students fail to meet certain benchmarks are in danger of losing their students to "school choice plans" (which enable parents of children attending failing schools to choose another, more highly rated school) while parents must contend with ever broadening educational policies. The implications of this policy have been far reaching. Textbook makers now market individualized textbooks that teach FCAT content, …

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Virtue And Inquiry, Knowledge And Ignorance: Lessons From The Theaetetus, Jennifer F. Ingle Jan 2007

Virtue And Inquiry, Knowledge And Ignorance: Lessons From The Theaetetus, Jennifer F. Ingle

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Plato's dialogues are set in fifth century Athens but they are performed for a fourth century audience. The context of his dialogues, then is wider perhaps than other philosophers and because of the difference in periods, it is clear that it is necessary for an audience member to possess knowledge of the events of the previous generation, viz., the fifth century BCE. When its cultural context is taken into account, the Theaetetus can not be read as an attempt by Plato to establish an epistemology in the modern sense of the term. While the characters of the dialogue are searching …

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Public Relations Practices In Puerto Rico: An Exploratory Qualitative Study, Delia R. Jourde Jan 2007

Public Relations Practices In Puerto Rico: An Exploratory Qualitative Study, Delia R. Jourde

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This explorative study is a qualitative assessment of culture as a critical aspect of public relations practice in Puerto Rico. Reviewing definitions of culture, Hofstede's dimensions of cultural values, the Excellence Theory, and international case studies, this study sought to answer the following research questions: What national cultural traits have an impact on the practice of public relations in Puerto Rico? Do Puerto Rican practitioners feel their own cultural characteristics have an impact on their practice of public relations? Does the cultural diversity of Puerto Rico have an impact on public relations practice in that country? Does the country's strong …

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Cogito Ergo Doceo: A Cross-Case Study Of Latin Teacher Cognition In Technology-Rich Communities Of Practice, Ramã³N Anthony Madrigal Jan 2007

Cogito Ergo Doceo: A Cross-Case Study Of Latin Teacher Cognition In Technology-Rich Communities Of Practice, Ramã³N Anthony Madrigal

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This empirical research study investigated the phenomenon of ancient language teacher cognition in the technology-rich contexts of two secondary teachers of Latin. Although one teacher was an inexperienced teacher working in a traditional, face-to-face classroom in an independent school, the other teacher was an experienced teacher working at a public virtual school. Features of teacher cognition, such as pre-active planning and inter-active decision-making were examined from a communities-of-practice theoretical perspective (Wenger, 1998). An exploratory, sequential mixed-methods research design was implemented in this cross-case study. Among the research findings that emerged from this investigation was the notion of the expedient integration …

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Between Knowledge & Practice: Factors That Influence The Operationalization Of Sexual Health Knowledge In African American Female College Students, Jamae F. Morris Jan 2007

Between Knowledge & Practice: Factors That Influence The Operationalization Of Sexual Health Knowledge In African American Female College Students, Jamae F. Morris

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper explores some of the factors that influence whether African American female college students implement safe sex knowledge. High rates of HIV/AIDS and other sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) in the black community and the overrepresentation of individuals under the age of 25 in sexually-transmitted infection (STI) reports indicate the need for research that investigates the physical, social, and cultural aspects of high-risk sexual behaviors and the factors that influence them for this group. African American female college students present a unique challenge to sexual health educators; a challenge that has been relatively under acknowledged and under addressed in research and …

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Forging Identities Through Style: Elite Interaction And Identity Formation At Late Classic (Ad 650-900) Palmarejo, Northwest Honduras, Claire Novotny Jan 2007

Forging Identities Through Style: Elite Interaction And Identity Formation At Late Classic (Ad 650-900) Palmarejo, Northwest Honduras, Claire Novotny

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The representation of social affiliation is dependent upon material signifiers that can serve as communicative links between individuals or communities. This study evaluates the material manifestation of an elite social identity during the Late Classic (AD 650-900) period at the site of Palmarejo, northwest Honduras. Previous studies on social identity in prehistory point to the importance of site plans, monumental architecture, ceramics, and human burials in conveying sociocultural messages. A regional comparison of these types of data is made between Palmarejo and three coeval sites in northwest Honduras, La Sierra, El Coyote, and Las Canoas. I argue that the chosen …

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