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2007

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Articles 44431 - 44460 of 46536

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Innovation Held Hostage: Has Federal Intervention Stifled Efforts To Reform The Child Welfare System?, Vivek Sankaran Jan 2007

Innovation Held Hostage: Has Federal Intervention Stifled Efforts To Reform The Child Welfare System?, Vivek Sankaran

Articles

The past thirty years have been marked by an increased federalization of child welfare law, which, like other areas of family law, traditionally remained within the sole purview of state legislatures. Despite increased oversight by the federal government, outcomes for foster children remain unacceptably poor The number of children in foster care has more than doubled over the past twenty-five years and reports of suspected maltreatment have skyrocketed. Children continue to stay too long in care and have too many placements. Case workers assigned to work with families and attorneys representing parents and children are overwhelmed and rarely provide meaningful …

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Does Nonprofit Ownership Matter?, Jill R. Horwitz Jan 2007

Does Nonprofit Ownership Matter?, Jill R. Horwitz

Articles

In recent years, policymakers have increasingly questioned whether nonprofit institutions, particularly hospitals, merit tax exemption. They argue that nonprofit hospitals differ little from their for-profit counterparts in the provision of charity care and, therefore, should either lose their tax-exempt status or adhere to new, strict, and specific requirements to provide free services for the poor. In this Article, I present evidence that hospital ownership-whether it is for-profit, nonprofit, or government owned-has a significant effect on the mix of medical services it offers. Despite notoriously weak enforcement mechanisms, nonprofit hospitals act in the public interest by providing services that are unlikely …

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Double-Consciousness In Constitutional Adjudication, Richard A. Primus Jan 2007

Double-Consciousness In Constitutional Adjudication, Richard A. Primus

Articles

Constitutional theorists are familiar with epistemic and consequentialist reasons why judges might allow their decision making to be shaped by strongly held public opinion. The epistemic approach treats public opinion as an expert indicator, while the consequentialistapproach counsels judges to compromise legally correct interpretations so as not to antagonize a hostile public. But there is also a third reason, which we can think ofas constitutive. In limited circumstances, the fact that the public strongly holds a given view can be one of the factors that together constitute the correct answer to a constitutional question. In those circumstances, what the public …

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African Art Music For Flute: A Study Of Selected Works By African Composers, Wendy Kristin Hymes Onovwerosuoke Jan 2007

African Art Music For Flute: A Study Of Selected Works By African Composers, Wendy Kristin Hymes Onovwerosuoke

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Recent years have witnessed an increase in the number of Western classical music performers actively programming works employing multi-cultural musical idioms. Though there exist many compositions by African composers, African art music is not often programmed by Western performers because of the lack of exposure these compositions have received, lack of commercially-available recordings, and the difficulties of obtaining information about African musical styles. The information presented in this research aims to aid performers in their preparation and approach to performing African art music compositions, specifically those for the western flute. This research includes biographical information and compositional philosophies of five …

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Method Of Metallurgically Bonding Articles And Article Therefor, Hai-Lung Tsai, P.-C. Wang Jan 2007

Method Of Metallurgically Bonding Articles And Article Therefor, Hai-Lung Tsai, P.-C. Wang

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

An article suitable for metallurgical bonding having a first part having a lower surface, and a second part having an upper surface is disclosed. The lower surface of the first part is disposed at the upper surface of the second part to provide for a faying surface thereat. The faying surface has a plurality of channels having a depth equal to or greater than about 1 micron and equal to or less than about 1000 microns. The article is suitable for metallurgical bonding at the faying surface.

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Fracture Toughness Of Ceramic Moulds For Investment Casting With Ice Patterns, Qingbin Liu, Ming-Chuan Leu, Von Richards Jan 2007

Fracture Toughness Of Ceramic Moulds For Investment Casting With Ice Patterns, Qingbin Liu, Ming-Chuan Leu, Von Richards

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Ice patterns can be used to make ceramic investment moulds for metal castings. Owing to the characteristics of ice, the ceramic mould must be made at subzero temperatures and consequently, requires a different formulation than shells built at room temperature. Success of this process depends greatly on the fracture toughness of mould materials. The present paper describes the experimental results of fracture toughness of mould materials processed from different compositions. The Taguchi method was used to reduce the trial runs. The parameters considered included the ratio of fibre containing fused silica and aluminosilicate powders, the volume of binder and the …

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Robust/Optimal Temperature Profile Control Of A High-Speed Aerospace Vehicle Using Neural Networks, Vivek Yadav, Radhakant Padhi, S. N. Balakrishnan Jan 2007

Robust/Optimal Temperature Profile Control Of A High-Speed Aerospace Vehicle Using Neural Networks, Vivek Yadav, Radhakant Padhi, S. N. Balakrishnan

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

An approximate dynamic programming (ADP)-based suboptimal neurocontroller to obtain desired temperature for a high-speed aerospace vehicle is synthesized in this paper. a 1-D distributed parameter model of a fin is developed from basic thermal physics principles. ldquoSnapshotrdquo solutions of the dynamics are generated with a simple dynamic inversion-based feedback controller. Empirical basis functions are designed using the ldquoproper orthogonal decompositionrdquo (POD) technique and the snapshot solutions. a low-order nonlinear lumped parameter system to characterize the infinite dimensional system is obtained by carrying out a Galerkin projection. an ADP-based neurocontroller with a dual heuristic programming (DHP) formulation is obtained with a …

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Law And Technology: Interactions And Relationships, Daniel J. Gifford Jan 2007

Law And Technology: Interactions And Relationships, Daniel J. Gifford

Articles

The relations between law and technology are both simple and exceedingly complex. At the most elementary level, technology consists in the application of labor to create a product, to generate a service or otherwise to produce a desired result. Technology develops as ways are found to produce new results or to produce old results using fewer or less costly inputs. Law is generally understood to exist as a set of rules adopted by a society's governing institutions that are applicable to all of its inhabitants.' All modern societies have established institutions charged with making determinations about the applicability and interpretations …

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Crime, Criminal Justice, And Criminology In The Netherlands, Michael Tonry, Catrien Bijleveld Jan 2007

Crime, Criminal Justice, And Criminology In The Netherlands, Michael Tonry, Catrien Bijleveld

Articles

No abstract provided.

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Looking Back To See The Future Of Punishment In America, Michael Tonry Jan 2007

Looking Back To See The Future Of Punishment In America, Michael Tonry

Articles

No abstract provided.

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The Formation Of International Treaties, Vincy Fon, Francesco Parisi Jan 2007

The Formation Of International Treaties, Vincy Fon, Francesco Parisi

Articles

No abstract provided.

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Punitive Damages And Valuing Harm, Alexandra B. Klass Jan 2007

Punitive Damages And Valuing Harm, Alexandra B. Klass

Articles

In 2003, the Supreme Court created a presumption that only single-digit ratios of punitive damages to compensatory damages would satisfy substantive due process limits. The exception to this presumption is when the defendant's misconduct results in only a small amount of compensatory damages or when harm is difficult to value. This Article proposes that while lower courts have properly departed from single-digit ratios where the compensatory damage are small, they have had more difficulty doing so when harm is difficult to value. As a result, lower courts are mechanically applying a single-digit ratio in cases where the Court's current framework …

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The Perfect Storm Of Retirement Insecurity: Fixing The Three-Legged Stool Of Social Security, Pensions, And Personal Savings, Stephen F. Befort Jan 2007

The Perfect Storm Of Retirement Insecurity: Fixing The Three-Legged Stool Of Social Security, Pensions, And Personal Savings, Stephen F. Befort

Articles

This article provides a wide-angle view of the looming crisis in retirement security. The impending confluence of a burgeoning retiree cohort and a diminishing resource base threatens to wreck havoc with the financial well-being of the coming generation of retirees. This article first reviews the current status of retirement security in the United States and finds that all three legs of the retirement stool - Social Security, pensions, and private savings - are projected to fall short of contributing adequate resources for future retirees. The article then turns toward a discussion of the possible responses for averting this potential crisis. …

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Stone V. Ritter And The Expanding Duty Of Loyalty, Claire Hill, Brett Mcdonnell Jan 2007

Stone V. Ritter And The Expanding Duty Of Loyalty, Claire Hill, Brett Mcdonnell

Articles

After the latest Disney decision, good faith seemed poised to take on a new and prominent role, either as an independent duty or as a component of one of the traditional fiduciary duties, loyalty or care. In the next case to arise, Stone v. Ritter, the Delaware Supreme Court quite specifically characterized the duty of good faith as part of the duty of loyalty. The Court also characterized Caremark, until then a paradigmatic duty of care case, as a duty of loyalty case. In our view, the court in Stone v. Ritter got it right, and indeed, should have gone …

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A Simple Statutory Solution To Minority Oppression In The Closely-Held Business, John H. Matheson, R. Kevin Maler Jan 2007

A Simple Statutory Solution To Minority Oppression In The Closely-Held Business, John H. Matheson, R. Kevin Maler

Articles

Disputes involving closely held businesses come in primarily two varieties. When, as is often the case, the business fails, creditors bring lawsuits seeking to pierce the corporate veil in an attempt to reach the assets of the business owners. 3 When the business does well, on the other hand, minority owners often accuse those in control of seeking ways to keep a bigger slice of the profit pie and of squeezing or freezing out minority owners. 4 These latter disputes are often categorized under the rubric of minority shareholder oppression; and attempts to deal with them by statute and judicial …

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Sticky Defaults And Altering Rules In Corporate Law, Brett Mcdonnell Jan 2007

Sticky Defaults And Altering Rules In Corporate Law, Brett Mcdonnell

Articles

Corporate law scholarship has long debated the extent to which corporate law rules are default or mandatory. It has paid less attention to corporate law's "altering rules," which prescribe what a corporation must do for its attempt at opting out of a given default rule to be recognized as legally valid. Altering rules may be more or less sticky, that is, they may make it easier or harder to opt out of a given default rule. They also help allocate authority among corporate constituency groups. Descriptively, a focus on altering rules provides a more detailed and nuanced understanding of the …

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The Goldilocks Hypothesis: Balancing Intellectual Property Rights At The Boundary Of The Firm, Dan L. Burk, Brett Mcdonnell Jan 2007

The Goldilocks Hypothesis: Balancing Intellectual Property Rights At The Boundary Of The Firm, Dan L. Burk, Brett Mcdonnell

Articles

Recent scholarship has begun to assess the role of intellectual property rights in the theory of the Coasean firm. Some of this scholarship has looked at the effects of intellectual property on decisions to "make or buy" inputs to production. Other scholarship has looked at the effects of intellectual property on allocation of resources between employees and the firm. In this paper, we integrate these two lines of scholarship, positing a "Goldilocks hypothesis" for the proper disposition of intellectual property rights. We argue that to properly allocate resources within the firm, property rights must be calibrated so as to avoid …

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Patents, Tax Shelters, And The Firm, Dan L. Burk, Brett Mcdonnell Jan 2007

Patents, Tax Shelters, And The Firm, Dan L. Burk, Brett Mcdonnell

Articles

Since the landmark State Street decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, patentable subject matter has encompassed business methods, including tax investment strategies. Patents provide approximately twenty years of exclusive rights in the claimed method, in return for public disclosure in a published patent. Typically, the efficacy of specialized investment strategies will be diminished as they become generally known and so widely practiced; for this reason, many tax investment methods have been implemented under confidentiality agreements in order to prevent them from becoming widely practiced. However, patenting of such strategies may allow them to be …

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Synaptic Boojums: Lewis Carroll, Linguistic Nonsense, And Cyberpunk, Jennifer Kelso Farrell Jan 2007

Synaptic Boojums: Lewis Carroll, Linguistic Nonsense, And Cyberpunk, Jennifer Kelso Farrell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Tracing a line from Lewis Carroll to 20th-century science fiction and cyberpunk, this project establishes an alternate genealogy based on the use of linguistic nonsense. Science fiction, rather than being merely a genre defined by specific narrative devices or character traits, is instead a language in and of itself. And like any language, it must be learned in order to be understood. Carroll used nonsense as a means of subverting conventional 19th-century opinions of language and, and by extension, society. Carroll was so successful at this that in 1937 American psychiatrist Paul Schilder discussed the dangers to a child's mind …

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Assessing Physical Function In Bilateral And Unilateral Total Knee Arthroplasty Patients., Tiina Tuulia Garrison Jan 2007

Assessing Physical Function In Bilateral And Unilateral Total Knee Arthroplasty Patients., Tiina Tuulia Garrison

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The general objective of this dissertation was to investigate physical function in osteoarthritis (OA) and total knee replacement (TKA) patients. First, a validation study was performed to evaluate the validity of the Continuous Scale Physical Functional Performance (CS-PFP10) test in knee OA awaiting TKA. The CS-PFP10 scores were compared to the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities OA Index (WOMAC), The Knee Society’s Clinical Rating System (KSS), and the Short Form 36-item health survey (SF-36) physical function scores. It was hypothesized that at least moderate associations between the CS-PFP10 test scores and the WOMAC, KSS, and SF-36 scores in TKA candidates …

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Franc̦Ais Acadien, Franc̦Ais Cadien: Variation Stylistique Et Maintenance De Formes Phonetiques Dans Le Parler De Quatre Generations De Femmes Cadiennes, Carole Lucienne Salmon Jan 2007

Franc̦Ais Acadien, Franc̦Ais Cadien: Variation Stylistique Et Maintenance De Formes Phonetiques Dans Le Parler De Quatre Generations De Femmes Cadiennes, Carole Lucienne Salmon

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a sociolinguistic study examining the phonetic variation in the speech of four generations of Cajun French women, living in four Louisiana parishes: Avoyelles, Lafourche, St Landry and Vermillon. Based on the Gold 1975 corpus and the Dubois 1997 Cajun French corpus available at LSU, a sample of 29 speakers was chosen for the analysis of five traditional phonetic variables: O in front of nasals MM/NN and liquids R and L, Œ in front of R, E in front of R and at the third person ending of the imparfait, J in lexical words, personal pronoun JE, and …

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Rural Care Registered Nurses' Interpretation Of Health Literacy And Its Effect On Patient Care, Brenda Matzke Jan 2007

Rural Care Registered Nurses' Interpretation Of Health Literacy And Its Effect On Patient Care, Brenda Matzke

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this phenomenological qualitative study was to describe rural care Registered Nurses’ interpretation of health literacy and its effect on patient care. Individuals who do not understand their disease and have poor management skills are at risk for low health literacy. The consequences of limited health literacy are poor healthcare outcomes and higher healthcare costs. Implications from this study are useful in educating practicing Registered Nurses in the development of the necessary skills to empower patients to actively participate in their healthcare. Education about health literacy should begin in grades Kindergarten through 12th, with the primary focus being …

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Integration-Regulation And Rural Suicide: A Test Of Three Alternative Models, Russell R. Davis Jan 2007

Integration-Regulation And Rural Suicide: A Test Of Three Alternative Models, Russell R. Davis

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is an examination of the social structural determinants of rural suicide rates. Examining rates of white male suicide in rural and urban counties of the U.S. Gulf States Region, this research adds to the existing literature by examining the theoretical and empirical implications of rural-urban location within sociology's Integration-Regulation Hypothesis of Suicide. Drawing upon suicide research from sociology, criminology and social psychology this study tests the differential explanatory power of three alternative theoretical and empirical predictor models of rural and urban suicide rates. Overall findings from this study underscore the need to examine suicide rates as distinct outcomes …

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A Horticultural Study Of Liriope And Ophiopogon: Nomenclature, Morphology, And Culture, Mary Catherine Broussard Jan 2007

A Horticultural Study Of Liriope And Ophiopogon: Nomenclature, Morphology, And Culture, Mary Catherine Broussard

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Liriopogons are evergreen perennials with a confusing taxonomy. New cultivars are being rapidly selected and named. The landscape industry uses them extensively and they are being planted in improper sites. Morphological studies were done at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to identify cultivars by comparing plants to botanical keys. Cultural studies were done at Burden Station in Baton Rouge, Louisiana by comparing cultivars in sun and 63% shade, and by greenhouse fertilization experiments, and pruning experiments. Plants were harvested, studied, dried and mounted in the Louisiana State University Herbarium as permanent record. Of the 19 cultivars of Liriope …

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Properties Of Silica-Polypeptide Composite Particles, Jianhong Qiu Jan 2007

Properties Of Silica-Polypeptide Composite Particles, Jianhong Qiu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Studies of grafting polymer on surfaces with chemical bonds started in the 1970’s, but few projects have focused on grafting polypeptide on spherical particles. In this research, polypeptides poly(å-carbobenzyloxy-L-lysine) (PCBL) or poly(ã-benzyl-L-glutamate) (PBLG) were grafted on silica sphere surfaces by using the “grafting from” method. The polypeptide-grafted silica spheres are called SiPCPs. The growth of polypeptide chains as a function of monomer amount and reaction time was explored. The properties of a mixture of PBLG rod-like polymer and PBLG SiPCPs were investigated. At high concentrations of these two components, the phase behavior was studied. At low concentrations of PBLG, the …

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"I Hear You, But I Don't Understand You": The Effects Of Peer Tutoring For Helping Secondary Esl Students Achieve Academic Success, Mary Pyron Jan 2007

"I Hear You, But I Don't Understand You": The Effects Of Peer Tutoring For Helping Secondary Esl Students Achieve Academic Success, Mary Pyron

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

When I began teaching 11th grade English in Houston, Texas, I quickly discovered that students who speak English as a second language are sometimes drastically under-prepared for the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test, the state’s high stakes test required during the 11th grade year. The result of their inability to pass the test is that they do not graduate, which limits their future career and academic choices. In a semester-long research study at a typical high school in Houston, Texas, I explored the possibility of assisting ESL/LEP students transplanted to Houston as they struggled with English proficiency …

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Casting Light Into "The Black Hole": Partisan Politics Of European Compliance, Isa Camyar Jan 2007

Casting Light Into "The Black Hole": Partisan Politics Of European Compliance, Isa Camyar

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The main analytical concern of this project is to develop and use innovative theoretical and methodological tools to explain the compliance process in the European Union (EU). There are three major issues in the existing literature on EU compliance: lack of theoretical achievement, failure to adequately chart the domestic politics of EU compliance and underrealized potential of the Large-N Research design. This project addresses each of these issues. As far as the first and second issues are concerned, I identify the lack of a sustained dialogue with international relations and comparative politics as the main limitation of the existing literature. …

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Brucella Melitensis: The Evaluation Of A Putative Hemagglutinin Gene's Effect On Virulence In The Caprine Model, Quinesha Laticia Perry Jan 2007

Brucella Melitensis: The Evaluation Of A Putative Hemagglutinin Gene's Effect On Virulence In The Caprine Model, Quinesha Laticia Perry

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Brucella melitensis is a facultative intracellular bacterial pathogen that causes abortions in goats and sheep and Malta fever in humans. The zoonotic disease brucellosis causes severe economic losses in the Mediterranean region and parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. With the completion of the genomic sequences of B. abortus 2308 and B. melitensis 16M, no classical virulence factors were found; and the chromosomes were virtually identical. However, in B. melitensis, a putative hemagglutinin gene was identified which is absent in B. abortus. The possibility of the hemagglutinin gene being a potential virulence factor was evaluated via gene replacement/deletion in …

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Flow Field And Heat Transfer Analyses Of Mechanical Seals, Zhaogao Luan Jan 2007

Flow Field And Heat Transfer Analyses Of Mechanical Seals, Zhaogao Luan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Mechanical seals are widely used in rotating equipment such as pumps, turbines and agitators to prevent leakage. One crucial factor for keeping seals reliable is the thermal behavior of the seal rings. The existing literature on thermal effects in seals primarily concentrates on the conduction of heat into the rings. Yet, a more complete analysis requires understanding of the flow field around the rings. In this dissertation, both the laminar and turbulent flows within the seal chamber are studied and their effects on the heat transfer in the seal rings are evaluated. Based on extensive sets of numerical simulations, heat …

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An Evaluation Of An Inshore Aquaculture Park For Sustainable Coastal Community Development, Vanesssa Maxwell Jan 2007

An Evaluation Of An Inshore Aquaculture Park For Sustainable Coastal Community Development, Vanesssa Maxwell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation addresses applying industrial park concepts to the development of aquaculture parks in public waters specifically for off-bottom triploid Easter oyster, Crassostrea virginica, culture. The objectives are to identify the permitting process, relevant agencies, and legislation needed to facilitate development of aquaculture parks in the Gulf of Mexico states, and test and analyze off-bottom oyster culture for commercial production of triploid oysters. Off-bottom culture can increase oyster production, but fouling organisms can reduce growth and survival rates. The Adjustable Longline System (ALS), commercially used in Australia, allows oyster bags to be suspended in the water column and positioned for …

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