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2007

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An Exploration Of The Impact Of Teachers' Instructional Practices In Teaching Phonemic Awareness To Kindergarten And First Grade Students, Gwendolyn Jackson Longmire Jan 2007

An Exploration Of The Impact Of Teachers' Instructional Practices In Teaching Phonemic Awareness To Kindergarten And First Grade Students, Gwendolyn Jackson Longmire

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This ten week study examined the impact of the teachers’ instructional strategies in teaching phonemic awareness to kindergarten and first grade students. Three questions were explored. These questions were: (a) How do teachers determine the appropriate instructional strategies to use in teaching phonemic awareness?, (b) What are the similarities and differences that each teacher demonstrates in implementing appropriate instructional strategies in teaching phonemic awareness?, and (c) How have the teachers’ efforts in implementing a Reading First program been rewarded? The participants in this study are two first grade teachers, two kindergarten teachers, and one kindergarten and first grade reading interventionist. …


An Examination Of The Presence Of Social Work Intervention With Home Health Care Recipients Of Related Home Health Care Outcomes, Corie Gail Hebert Jan 2007

An Examination Of The Presence Of Social Work Intervention With Home Health Care Recipients Of Related Home Health Care Outcomes, Corie Gail Hebert

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The study was prompted by the need for a social work response to the dramatic changes that have occurred in the home health care arena as a result of managed care policies. Social work has been part of home health care since its inception, but the current cost constrained market threatens the viability of social work in providing servies to elderly, ill, homebound individuals. Medicare home health care benefits have traditionally enabled many elderly individuals to live independently in thier communities. However, passage of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which mandated the use of a Prospective Payment System for …


The Sociomoral Atmosphere Rating Template (Smart): An Investigation Of Reliability And Validity, Richard Sean Durham Jan 2007

The Sociomoral Atmosphere Rating Template (Smart): An Investigation Of Reliability And Validity, Richard Sean Durham

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study describes the development of the Sociomoral Atmosphere Rating Template (SMART), an instrument designed to rate the sociomoral atmosphere in early childhood classrooms, and an investigation of the instrument's reliability and validity. Results indicate that individuals can be trained to reliably use the SMART and that the measure is internally consistent. In addition to its face validity, results indicate that the SMART has convergent validity when compared to the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale - Revised (Harms, Clifford, & Cryer, 1998) and the Teacher Interaction Scale (Arnett, 1989). Comparisons at the subscale level suggest discriminant validity. Implications and plans …


Effect Of Hole Configurations On Film Cooling From Cylindrical Inclined Holes For The Application To Gas Turbine Blades, Yiping Lu Jan 2007

Effect Of Hole Configurations On Film Cooling From Cylindrical Inclined Holes For The Application To Gas Turbine Blades, Yiping Lu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Film cooling is one of the cooling systems investigated for the application to gas turbine blades. Gas turbines use film cooling in addition to turbulated internal cooling to protect the blades outer surface from hot gases. The present study concentrates on the experimental and numerical investigation of film cooling performance for a row of cylindrical holes in a modern turbine blade. The adiabatic film effectiveness and the heat transfer coefficient are determined experimentally on a flat plate downstream of a row of inclined different geometries hole exit by using a single test transient IR thermography technique. The focus of this …


Fever, Firepower, And Flood: The Transformation Of The Missouri River Bottomlands In The Dakotas 1804-2005, Robert A. Dunn Jan 2007

Fever, Firepower, And Flood: The Transformation Of The Missouri River Bottomlands In The Dakotas 1804-2005, Robert A. Dunn

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the indigneous geography of the Missouri River Valley of the Dakotas. Since Lewis and Clark's expedition in 1804, this landscape has been transformed by two externally introduced components, reservations and reservoirs. To move the native tribes out of the way of an expanding American empire in the mid-19th century, the U.S. Government confined the tribes to territories, then to reservations, which grew smaller as each new wave of Euro-American immigration launched more land-taking by the federal government. To ensure military and political control over the tribes, the U.S. government supported the efforts of hide hunters to …


Comparing Kin And Non-Kin Foster Parents' Emotional Investment In Their Young Children, Rhonda Norwood Jan 2007

Comparing Kin And Non-Kin Foster Parents' Emotional Investment In Their Young Children, Rhonda Norwood

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In 2003, there were reports of child maltreatment affecting over 5.5 million children in the United States. As a result of this epidemic, over 500,000 children are in foster care with an estimated additional 300,000 in voluntary kin placements. Because of a shortage of foster families and resources, Child Protective Services (CPS) agencies routinely seek and give priority to family members to serve as foster families to maltreated children. There is a large body of research that demonstrates that children in kinship care are often at greater risk than those children placed in non-kin foster homes, particularly in terms of …


Lanthanide Complexes As Fluorescent Indicators For Neutral Sugars And Cancer Biomarkers, Onur Alpturk Jan 2007

Lanthanide Complexes As Fluorescent Indicators For Neutral Sugars And Cancer Biomarkers, Onur Alpturk

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Simple water soluble lanthanum and europium complexes are effective at detecting neutral sugars as well as glyco- and phospholipids. In solutions at physiologically relevant pH the fluorescent lanthanum complex binds neutral sugars with apparent binding constants comparable to those of arylboronic acids. Interference from commonly occurring anions is minimal. The europium complex detects sialic acid-containing gangliosides at pH 7.0 over an asialoganglioside. This selectivity is attributed, in large part, to the cooperative complexation of the oligosaccharide and sialic acid residues to the metal center, based on analogous prior studies. In MeOH, lysophosphatidic acid (LPA), a biomarker for several pathological conditions …


Xanthene/Benzoxanthene Dyes: Novel Synthetic Metholologies, Applications In Molecular Recognition, Cellular Imaging And The Design Of A Tunable White (Rgb) Light Emitter, Youjun Yang Jan 2007

Xanthene/Benzoxanthene Dyes: Novel Synthetic Metholologies, Applications In Molecular Recognition, Cellular Imaging And The Design Of A Tunable White (Rgb) Light Emitter, Youjun Yang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

My graduate work has focused on the development of new fluorophore materials towards addressing several interdisciplinary research problems. Selective detection of sialic acid via a boron-amide interaction. Concentration changes of sialic acid can be monitored ratiometrically in the visible region using a boronic acid based chemosensor. The technique shows great promise for the detection of sialic acid, a critical cell surface residue involved in cancer, graft rejection and virulence in certain bacteria. There is no interference from commonly occurring oligosaccharides, aminosugars and most carboxylic acid-containing compounds. Improved synthetic methodology and studies of novel molecular probe architectures. I have developed a …


Syntheseses [Sic] And Evaluation Of Porphyrin Derivatives For Applications In Medicine And In Material Science, Erhong Hao Jan 2007

Syntheseses [Sic] And Evaluation Of Porphyrin Derivatives For Applications In Medicine And In Material Science, Erhong Hao

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Chapter 1 presents a concise introduction to porphyrins, especially on the synthesis of meso-tetraphenylporphyrins, which were synthesized during the course of my research and were used for further purposes in the following chapters. Chapter 2 describes the synthesis of a series of cobaltacarborane-porphyrin conjugates for the boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) of tumors. Using an efficient and high yield ring-opening reaction, N-substituted porphyrins were also synthesized. The spectroscopic and structural properties of these compounds are presented. These high percentage boron and amphiphilic compounds are promising boron delivery agents for BNCT (prelimary cellular studies using some of these compounds have been …


Wood Liquefaction In The Presence Of Phenol With A Weak Acid Catalyst And Its Potential For Novolac Type Wood Adhesives, Hui Pan Jan 2007

Wood Liquefaction In The Presence Of Phenol With A Weak Acid Catalyst And Its Potential For Novolac Type Wood Adhesives, Hui Pan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Wood liquefaction was conducted using phenol as a reagent solvent with oxalic acid as a catalyst. A series of studies were done on liquefied wood, liquefied wood residues, novolac-type liquefied wood resins, and bio-composites fabricated from liquefied wood resin. The results of the liquefied wood residue characterization revealed that the liquefaction reactions conducted in different reaction vessels underwent different liquefaction mechanisms. The crystallinity indexes of the liquefied wood residues were higher than that of the original wood, indicating that the amorphous lignin was the most susceptible component in wood to the liquefaction reaction. Fe2+ and Fe3+ ions were found to …


The Relationship Between Participation In Professional Development And Level Of Social Capital, Sylvia Caillier Melancon Jan 2007

The Relationship Between Participation In Professional Development And Level Of Social Capital, Sylvia Caillier Melancon

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship exists between level of social capital and the extent of participation in professional development activities for professional employees of a profit-based organization located in the Southeastern United States. The researcher used survey methodology to determine the extent of participation in professional development activities within a 12 month period and the level of social capital within an organizational setting. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine if a model exists to explain a significant portion of the variance in the extent of participation in professional development activities from selected demographic …


Turbulence Modeling For Film Cooling Flows, Asif Hoda Jan 2007

Turbulence Modeling For Film Cooling Flows, Asif Hoda

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

An improved two equation turbulence model has been developed in this dissertation to better predict the complex film cooling flow field that is formed from the interaction of a coolant jet and a crossflow over a modeled turbine blade surface. Film cooling of turbine blades is commonly employed to effectively protect turbine blades from thermal failure and thereby to allow higher inlet temperatures in order to increase the efficiency of gas turbine engines. Film cooling involves the injection of rows of coolant jets from slots on the surface of a turbine blade which is then bent over by the crossflow …


Eigenvalue Optimization And Its Applications In Buckling And Vibration, Srinivas Gopal Krishna Jan 2007

Eigenvalue Optimization And Its Applications In Buckling And Vibration, Srinivas Gopal Krishna

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Eigenvalue problems are of immense interest and play a pivotal role not only in many fields of engineering but also in pure and applied mathematics. An in-depth understanding of this class of problems is a pre-requisite for vibration and buckling analyses of structures. Design optimization of structures to prevent failure due to instability (bucking) and vibration introduces the problem of determining optimal physical parameters such that load carrying capacity or the fundamental natural frequency is maximized. A classical example of such problems is the Lagrange problem of determining the shape of the strongest column against buckling. The primary objective of …


Balch Internet Research And Analysis Tool Development Case Study, Charles V. Balch Jan 2007

Balch Internet Research And Analysis Tool Development Case Study, Charles V. Balch

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Internet has become increasing popular as a vehicle to deliver surveys. An essential objective of research is to collect accurate data and there has been little work to insure that Internet survey systems are employing best practices as defined by academic and professional research to collect data. My dissertation reviews the current literature relating to best practices in Internet survey design and best practices in software design and development. I then document the development and deployment of an Open Source and publicly licensed Internet survey system that allows researchers to easily create, deploy, and analyze the results of Internet …


Using Time-Lapse And Stroboscopic Photography To Enhance Student Understanding Of Plant Growth, Structure, And Pollination: An Inquiry-Based Study, Louis John Schultz Jan 2007

Using Time-Lapse And Stroboscopic Photography To Enhance Student Understanding Of Plant Growth, Structure, And Pollination: An Inquiry-Based Study, Louis John Schultz

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study was designed to evaluate the effects of allowing students to generate their own images in a science class as opposed to using pre-existing images. The participants in the study were 7th grade science students enrolled in a small, rural, Louisiana school. A mixed methods design was used so that call available data was collected and analyzed. The lessons used in the study were based on plant structure, growth, and propagation which fit into the mandated 7th grade science curriculum. The students were involved in the taking of still, time-lapse, and stroboscopic images throughout the study. Although an analysis …


The Relationship Of Selected Personal Characteristics Of E-Faculty To Their Perceived Technological Knowledge, Myriah Christin Clark Jan 2007

The Relationship Of Selected Personal Characteristics Of E-Faculty To Their Perceived Technological Knowledge, Myriah Christin Clark

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigated the technological development of e-faculty at five randomly selected Carnegie classified (2006) Doctorate-Granting Research Universities with very high research activity (RU/VH) in the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB). The majority of e-faculty report that they do not have release time/reduced teaching load for preparing web-based materials/courses, nor do they have graduate or teaching assistants available for assisting with web-based learning. However, a little over half of them reported having instructional designers or curriculum developers to help with the designing of web-based materials and a large majority reported having adequate institutional research resources (library holdings that are accessible …


Flow And Distribution Of Water In Fractional Wettability Unsaturated Porous Media, Zaydoun Turkey Abusalem Jan 2007

Flow And Distribution Of Water In Fractional Wettability Unsaturated Porous Media, Zaydoun Turkey Abusalem

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In recent years, interest in fluid flow and transport in the unsaturated zone has gained more attention, due to growing concerns that the quality of the subsurface environment is adversely affected by agricultural, industrial, and municipal activities. The wettability properties (e.g., water repellency) of soil in the unsaturated zone play an important role in determining fluid movement and ultimate distributions. A number of studies have shown that preferential flow and spatially variable moisture content is likely to occur in water repellant soils. Development of appropriate constitutive relations for numerical modeling becomes even more difficult in systems that contain water repellant …


Knowledge-Based Methods For Automatic Extraction Of Domain-Specific Ontologies, Janardhana R. Punuru Jan 2007

Knowledge-Based Methods For Automatic Extraction Of Domain-Specific Ontologies, Janardhana R. Punuru

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Semantic web technology aims at developing methodologies for representing large amount of knowledge in web accessible form. The semantics of knowledge should be easy to interpret and understand by computer programs, so that sharing and utilizing knowledge across the Web would be possible. Domain specific ontologies form the basis for knowledge representation in the semantic web. Research on automated development of ontologies from texts has become increasingly important because manual construction of ontologies is labor intensive and costly, and, at the same time, large amount of texts for individual domains is already available in electronic form. However, automatic extraction of …