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An Analysis Of The Processor Preferences For The Adoption Of Potential Crawfish Peeling Machines, Darius J. Lewis

LSU Master's Theses

Over the past decade, the peeling segment of the Louisiana crawfish industry has faced the challenge of remaining competitive in an increasingly global market. Since the mid-1990’s, there has been escalated discussion among Louisiana crawfish processors on the need for a crawfish peeling machine. The International Trade Commission determined that the U.S. crawfish industry had been “materially injured” by the imported tailmeat and ruled China was, in fact, dumping crawfish in the U.S. by selling below fair market value in the host country. The development of a suitable crawfish peeling machine could potentially increase production and lower cost of production, …

An Investigation Of Maternal Psychopathology As A Moderator Of Child Response Following Hurricane Katrina, Ann Wingate Spell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Previous disaster research has focused on possible risk factors that contribute to child psychological distress following disaster exposure. One of these factors, parental psychopathology, has consistently been indicated as associated with and predictive of child functioning post-disaster. In related areas of violence exposure, researchers have gone beyond correlation and prediction in their attempt to elucidate the relationship between parental psychopathology and child functioning post-trauma. Such researchers have investigated and confirmed parental psychopathology as a moderator variable in the relationship between child violence exposure and child functioning. Thus, in considering the status of research regarding risk factors of child functioning post-disaster …

Study Of Ranking Irregularities When Evaluating Alternatives By Using Some Electre Methods And A Proposed New Mcdm Method Based On Regret And Rejoicing, Xiaoting Wang

LSU Master's Theses

Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) is one of the most widely used decision methodologies in the sciences, business, and engineering worlds. MCDM methods aim at improving the quality of decisions by making the process more explicit, rational, and efficient. One intriguing problem is that oftentimes different methods may yield different answers to the same decision problem. Thus, the issue of evaluating the relative performance of different MCDM methods is raised. One evaluating procedure is to examine the stability of an MCDM method’s mathematical process by checking the validity of its proposed rankings. The ELECTRE II and III methods are two well-known MCDM …

Epistemological Congruency In Community College Classrooms: Effects Of Epistemological Beliefs On Students Experiences, Cheryl Fruge

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed method study was to explore epistemological beliefs of students as well as those of their instructors to determine how epistemological congruence or incongruence shapes students’ experiences. The term, “epistemological congruency” is introduced to conceptualize the similarities or differences between students’ and teachers’ epistemological beliefs. Further, the study considers how students’ grades, integration into the academic community, and intentions to persist are related to epistemological congruency between teacher and student. Students and faculty at a community college in the Southeastern United States participated in the study. The theoretical framework for this study is based on Tinto’s …

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 …

Writing The Circle: Judicially Convened Sentencing Circles And The Textual Organization Of Criminal Justice, Emma Cunliffe, Angela Cameron

All Faculty Publications

Trial court judges who work in remote Northern Canadian Aboriginal communities use judicially convened sentencing circles to gather information and develop sentencing recommendations in some intimate violence cases. Proponents claim that judicially convened sentencing circles are a restorative justice practice that heals the offender, his community, and the survivor of the violence. Proponents also look to sentencing circles as a tool to find a just outcome that minimizes Aboriginal men's incarceration. We use a methodology developed by feminist sociologist Dorothy Smith to consider whether the institutional priorities being established and approved by courts in sentencing circle cases provide adequate protection …

Somatic Computationalism: Damasio's Clever Error, Christopher D. Pope

LSU Master's Theses

Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio wrote a book entitled DESCARTES’ ERROR (1994) in order to address popular misconceptions about the mind, particularly those which relate to Cartesian philosophy. One of the author’s major goals for the book is to argue that emotion contributes to reason, that emotion is in fact necessary for rational thought to occur. In order to link emotion to reason, Damasio proposes a theory of mind which explains several mental functions in terms of neurological representations. Consciousness, reason, instinct and emotion all occur because the brain forms representations of the subject’s body and of the world in which the …

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

Bulletin & Curriculum Change Documents

No abstract provided.

Curriculum Change 2007-2008, Portland State University

Bulletin & Curriculum Change Documents

No abstract provided.

The Measure Of The Doubt: Dissent, Indeterminacy, And Interpretation At The Federal Circuit, Jeffrey A. Lefstin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

An Examination Of The Expectations And Experiences Of Beginning Teachers Of The Gifted, Kimberly Nicole Mcglonn

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Researchers in the field of gifted education have pointed to the need for deeper understanding of the complex expectations and experiences of beginning teachers of the gifted (Pollak, 1996; Hanninen, 1988), that is, teachers of the gifted who have less than three years’ experience teaching gifted learners. Further, several important questions remain unanswered regarding the structure/content of preparation for pre-service teachers of the gifted (Joffe, 2001; Chan, 2001; Mills, 2003; Hansen and Feldhusen, 1994; Johnsen, 2004). Finally, the field of gifted education would benefit from insight into the experiences of beginning teachers of the gifted, particularly insight from a first-hand …

Individual And Organizational Differences In Organizational Commitment And Escalation Of Commitment, Molly J. Russ

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The present study extended the literature on employee commitment and escalation bias to include individual and organizational difference factors. Escalation bias refers to the tendency for a decision-maker to become overly committed to the decision focus (e.g., the organization, supervisor, an ongoing project) even in light of negative feedback regarding the person’s or project’s performance (Moon, 2001; Staw, 1976). An escalation of commitment to a losing course of action is viewed as risky and often costly behavior to organizations. The main purpose of the present study was to identify factors that may predispose persons to escalate their commitment. While using …

Expectation In Visual Symbolic Processing Of Environmental Symbols In People With Fluent Aphasia, Amanda Stead

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine aspects of visual symbolic processing in those individuals with fluent aphasia, and how it compares to that of their lexical ability. Two groups of participants were examined: a group with fluent aphasia, and a group of non-neurologically damaged controls. Participants were administered four computer based expectation tasks, two of which were symbolic, and two which were lexical. Each task contained a simple and a complex level. Participants were required to determine if the final stimulus, within a set of four, was congruent or incongruent. The measures taken included both reaction time and …

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 …

¿ La Raza Latina?: Multiracial Ambivalence, Color Denial, And The Emergence Of A Tri-Ethnic Jurisprudence At The End Of The Twentieth Century, Tom I. Romero Ii

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Disparities In Health And Well-Being Among Latinos In Washington Heights/Inwood, 2000–2005, Ana Motta-Moss

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report analyzes how well the residents of Washington Heights/Inwood (WH/IN) have fared on selected health indicators set forth by the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygene between 2000 and 2005.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: Immigrant families in particular face a multitude of health concerns, as well as specific barriers to accessing health care services. The socioeconomic and …

Activism And Pedagogies: Feminist Reflections, Patricia Ticineto Clough, Michelle Fine

Publications and Research

Together our two essays move between scenes of teaching and researching with women and men who are or have been in prison. Having written on ethnography, autoethnography, and participatory research, we both have sought a method that would allow us to abandon superficial identifications, mistaken for deep connection, with those who are or have been incarcerated. While we are conscious of the failures and successes of our attempts, we nonetheless write because what we have learned about the state's support for mass incarceration and the state's retreat from public higher education—particularly for persons of color—more than warrants it. With this …

Review Of The Page Turner, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of Denis Dercourt's 2006 film: http://www.media-party.com/discland/2007/07/the-page-turner.html

Review Of Pretty Things, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of Gilles Paquet-Brenner's Pretty Things: http://www.media-party.com/discland/2007/12/pretty-things.html

Review Of Hamlet, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet: http://www.media-party.com/discland/2007/09/hamlet-1996.html

Hierarchical Linear Modeling In Organizational Research: Longitudinal Data Outside The Context Of Growth Modeling, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, David Rindskopf

Publications and Research

Organizational researchers, including those carrying out occupational stress research, often conduct longitudinal studies. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM; also known as multilevel modeling and random regression) can efficiently organize analyses of longitudinal data by including within- and between-person levels of analysis. A great deal of longitudinal research has been conducted in the context of growth studies in which change in the dependent variable is examined in relation to the passage of time. HLM can treat longitudinal data, including data outside the context of the growth study, as nested data, reducing the problem of censoring. Within-person equation coefficients can represent the impact …

Recruiting New Members, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

The Annual Convention of the Association for Psychological Science took place in New York City from May 25 to May 28, 2006. We attended the convention and had a number of goals that we wanted to accomplish: assume a position on the graduate student board, present at a poster session, attend various conference events, and recruit conferees for the Society for Occupational Health Psychology. It is the last goal about which we are writing. We hope that this article will help our SOHP colleagues recruit, at some future time, new members for our organization.

Brief Note From The Editor, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

To Cite Or Not To Cite? Confronting The Legacy Of (European) Writing On African Music, Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

English Abstract:

The current citational practice in Western scholarship is ideologically loaded, being far more suited to a written economy than a primarily oral culture in which knowledge is preserved in memory and disseminated through repeated performance. The impact of orality on musical scholarship should be more closely investigated; African scholars have all too often become informants rather than theorists of their own traditions. It is therefore proposed that the routine citation of a body of scholarship developed without Africa's historically-specific intellectual needs and ambitions in mind should in fact be discouraged.

German Abstract:

Die heutige Zitierpraxis der westlichen Wissenschaft …

Offsetting Behavior And The Benefits Of Food Safety Policies In Vegetable Preparation And Consumption, Elvis Mokake Ndembe

Agribusiness and Applied Economics

Foodbome disease outbreaks have a tremendous impact on society, including foodbome illnesses, hospitalizations, lost work time, and deaths. These food-safety events have a significant influence in shaping consumers' perception of risk. Outbreaks of foodbome illnesses also have an effect on the development of public health policy. Due to these safety-related uncertainties in the food supply chain, various regulatory, safety, and health policies are implemented to decrease harm to potential victims. The total effect of such food-safety policies looked at in terms of reduction of foodbome illness, mortality, and food-related diseases may possibly be smaller than the forecasted effect because of …

A Reference Price Model Of Sugar Consumption With Implications On Obesity, Cary Marshall Effertz

Agribusiness and Applied Economics

Obesity has increased dramatically in the past 25 years. The consumption of added sugar has increased significantly during the same time period. Previous research indicates a direct correlation between the consumption of added sugar and the prevalence of obesity. Sugar has been identified in multiple studies as having addictive or opiate-like qualities. Unquestionably, added sugar consumption has contributed to the current obesity epidemic. Here, we apply a reference price economic model to attempt to describe sugar consumption. Using consumption and price data from the Economic Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, we made a reference price estimation …

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.

Art, Perception And Indeterminacy, Robert Pepperell

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This article considers the phenomenon of visual indeterminacy, which occurs when the sensory data gathered from the visual system cannot be integrated with semantic knowledge. A number of examples are given, including from the author's own art work, and some results presented from a scientific study based on them. The implications for the operation of the mind and, in particular, the nature of aesthetic experience are addressed, and the distinction between the perception of visual forms and their cognitive interpretation is discussed. Arguments about the nature of aesthetic experience are then considered from some historical sources and interpreted in light …

Acquired Taste, Kevin Melchionne

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Acquired taste is an integral part of the cultivation of taste. In this essay, I identify acquired taste as a form of intentional belief acquisition or adaptive preference formation, distinguishing it from ordinary or discovered taste. This account of acquired taste allows for the role of self-deception in the development of taste. I discuss the value of acquired taste in the overall development of taste as well as the ways that an over-reliance on acquired taste can distort overall taste.

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 …