Digital Commons Network^™

Determinants Of The Onset Of Disability In Old Age, Kayla Fontenot

LSU Master's Theses

With a rapidly aging population, maximizing independent living among the elderly is a growing concern. The inability to perform normal basic care activities interferes with an older individual's ability to live independently. In this study, I examine the onset of disability among elderly Americans using the 2002 and 2004 waves of the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS). In examining the explanatory power of both the life course perspective and the medical model, I find that the medical model is better able to explain onset of disability for males while the life course perspective prevails when explaining onset of disability among …

Revelations From "Cheesecake Manor": Agatha Christie, Detective Fiction, And Interwar England, Carron Stewart Fillingim

LSU Master's Theses

For too long standard interwar histories have portrayed the interwar years as a period marked by failure, instability, depression, and volatility. Instead, rising living standards, the narrowing of socioeconomic disparities, expanded avenues of social welfare, increased leisure time, and mass consumerism resulted in an altogether peaceful, healthier, stable, and increasingly affluent England. Out of these rising economic improvements emerged forms of mass entertainment, including popular fiction. Cheaper paper and printing methods, rising literacy, faster distribution methods, new forms of advertising, and the expansion of public libraries led to the creation of a mass readership across England. For the first time, …

Constructive Nonvolition In Patent Law And The Problem Of Insufficient Thought Control, Kevin Emerson Collins

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Search Interest In Contract, Joshua Fairfield

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Parties often do not negotiate for contract terms. Instead, parties search for the products, terms, and contractual counterparties they desire. The traditional negotiation-centered view of contract leads courts to try to determine the meaning of the parties where no meaning was negotiated and to waste time determining the benefits of bargains that were never struck. Further, while courts have ample tools to validate specifically negotiated contract terms, they lack the tools to respond to searched-for terms. Although the law and literature have long recognized that there is a disconnect between the legal fictions of negotiation and the reality of contracting …

An Hedonic Analysis Of Southwestern Louisiana Wetland Prices Using Gis, Baifu Xu

LSU Master's Theses

Louisiana is the beneficiary of more than 30% of the U.S. coastal wetlands, but the state’s wetland loss accounts for about 90% of the total throughout the continental United States. The Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act of 1990 and the $1.9 billion that has recently been dedicated by Congress for coastal restoration activities will certainly aid in restoration efforts. However, these dedicated funds are but a small fraction of the total monies that will be required to maintain/restore Louisiana’s degraded wetlands. Recent estimates suggest restoration activities will cost, at a minimum, about $14 billion. The research, based on …

Toward A History Of Children As Witnesses, David S. Tanenhaus, William Bush

Scholarly Works

This brief essay offers a selective overview of recent trends in the historical scholarship on American childhood from the origins of the American Revolution to the early years of the Cold War. This overview of the literature has two purposes. First, it highlights recent socio-cultural scholarship that presents substantive challenges to the conventional ways of understanding the history of children and the law. Second, in so doing, it points out that legal histories concerned solely with doctrinal matters can, and often do, present a limited and distorted window into the past. Instead, the essay argues that the place of children, …

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 …

A Proposed Solution To The Scholarly Communication Crisis, Chad J. Schatzle

Scholarly Works

After reviewing the history and parameters of the scholarly communications crisis, particularly in regard to skyrocketing prices for journals in the natural sciences, the author reviews and rejects previously attempted solutions. He then employs the principles of game theory in proposing a new solution to the crisis.

Destructive Ambiguity: Enemy Nationals And The Legal Enabling Of Ethnic Conflict In The Middle East, Michael Kagan

Scholarly Works

In the course of the Middle East conflict since 1948, both the Arab states and Israel have tended to take harsh measures against civilians based on their national, ethnic, and religious origins. This practice has been partially legitimized by a norm in international law that permits states to infringe the liberty and property interests of enemy nationals during armed conflict. Middle Eastern governments have misused the logic behind this theoretically exceptional rule to justify far-reaching measures that undermine the “principle of distinction” between civilians and combatants and erode the principle of non-discrimination that lies at the center of human rights …

Nature, Nurture, Mythology: A Cultural History Of Dutch Orangism During The First Stadholderless Era, 1650-1672, Greg Alan Beaman

LSU Master's Theses

Through its military and political service to the United Provinces of the Netherlands during the course of the Dutch struggle for independence from Spain, the house of Orange came to occupy a special place in Dutch culture. The image of the house of Orange in Dutch political culture followed a trajectory of cultural assimilation from the sixteenth century to the early eighteenth century, whereby Orange's continued service linked it inextricably to certain aspects of Dutch culture. Having granted the house of Orange legitimacy as political leaders, the Dutch people went about incorporating Orange into the heart of their cultural spirit. …

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 …

There Is A Land In The Far Off West, Michael Maben

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Opting Out: Procedural Fair Use, Michael Mattioli

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article explores the advantages of opt-out plans, and identifies a critical shortcoming in Copyright's doctrine of Fair Use. The discussion is fueled by a current controversy: In December of 2004, Google, Inc. announced its plan to digitally scan thousands of copyrighted books as part of a massive new digital indexing service. Hedging against possible litigation, Google provided a free and easy opt-out procedure for authors who didn't want their books scanned. Despite this measure, two major authors' groups have sued Google, claiming the opt-out plan imposes an unfair burden. This article explores the fairness of established opt-outs in contract …

Evaluating Precision Agricultural Technologies In A Louisiana Cotton Insect Pest Management System, Joshua Heath Temple

LSU Master's Theses

A variable rate pesticide application system was developed and tested during 2001 for an agricultural aircraft in Louisiana. Using technology available to the agricultural aviation industry, a variable rate prescription of insecticide was successfully applied to a cotton field in 2002. These studies compared the efficacy and value of spatially variable insecticide (SVI) applications based on yield maps to the producer standard, whole-field broadcast treatments. Insecticide prescriptions were created from historical yield and production data. Treatments included whole-field broadcast sprays, yield-based SVI sprays, and profit-based SVI sprays. Twenty-two SVI applications were made to test fields from 2002-2005 using two aircraft …

Hi-Tech Cheating: A Study Of Student Attitudes On Academic Dishonesty Involving The Use Of Information Technology, Michael P. Smith

LSU Master's Theses

Despite the fact that research into cheating has continued for several decades, cheating in higher education appears to be widespread and endemic. This may be particularly troublesome for business school students, who, according to some research, appear to cheat more than students in other curriculums. Technology is giving students new opportunities to cheat. Companies are developing products specifically designed to help students cheat. Although there are some resources and tools to help faculty monitor things such as plagiarism, technology is providing a continuous stream of new opportunities for students to cheat, oftentimes without a high likelihood of being caught. Beliefs …

The Apologia Of Franchino Gafurio: A Critical Edition And Translation, Patrick Joseph Kaufman

LSU Master's Theses

Franchino Gafurio’s Apologia (Turin, 1520) is one musical treatise in a series of works that constituted the famous “pamphlet war” between he and Giovanni Spataro. The dispute originated with the publication of Bartholomeo Ramis de Pareia’s Musica practica (Bologna, 1482). Unconventional and unapologetically critical, Ramis rejected venerated musical traditions in an attempt to align music theory with contemporary music practice. He opposed the Pythagorean division of the monochord and Guidonian solmization syllables, and instead proposed a division which produced pure thirds, and a solmization system based on the octave. His iconoclastic proposals and his highly sarcastic tone called forth a …

Litigating Canada-U.S. Transboundary Harm: International Environmental Lawmaking And The Threat Of Extraterritorial Reciprocity, Austen L. Parrish, Shi-Ling Hsu

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article joins a spirited debate ongoing among international law scholars. Numerous articles have debated the changing nature of international law and relations: the impact of globalization, the decline of territorial-sovereignty, the ever important role that non-state actors play, and the growing use of domestic laws to solve transboundary problems. That scholarship, however, often speaks only in general theoretical terms, and has largely ignored how these changes are playing out in countries outside the United States in ways that impact American interests.

This Article picks up where that scholarship leaves off. It examines one of the perennial challenges for international …

In Defense Of Mandatory Arbitration (If Imposed On The Company), Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

Having spent much of her academic life battling companies' mandatory imposition of binding arbitration on consumers and employees, the author now switches gears. This Article contemplates whether mandatory binding arbitration is acceptable if imposed by the government on companies (governmental mandatory arbitration) rather than by companies on their employees and consumers (private mandatory arbitration). Specifically, the Article considers the possibility of statutes that would provide little guys (consumers and employees) with an opportunity to take their disputes to binding arbitration rather than litigation. If the little guys chose arbitration over litigation, post-dispute, companies would have to agree to such arbitration, …

False Rivers, Tracy Heischman

LSU Master's Theses

The issue of Modern society’s detachment from nature and a sense of place are the inspiration for this body of work. The use of aerial landscapes relates to the concept of our increasing disconnection from nature and our environment. Viewers float above the landscape and are not part of it. They can become involved visually but are not connected by a traditional point of view. There is evidence of humanity, but it is impersonal, paired down to simple shapes and brush strokes. By pulling back and showing humanity as a smaller part of the earth, like ants leaving trails in …

Data Compression With Application To Geo-Location, William Perkins

LSU Master's Theses

A common way to locate an emitter within a wireless sensor network requires the estimation of time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA) parameters using data collected by a set of spatially separated sensors. Compressing the data that is shared among the sensors can provide tremendous savings in terms of the energy and transmission latency. Traditional MSE and perceptual based data compression schemes fail to accurately capture the effects of compression on the TDOA estimation task; therefore, it is necessary to investigate compression algorithms suitable for TDOA parameter estimation. This thesis explores the effects of data compression on TDOA parameter estimation accuracy. The first part …

Tracing Legends, Kimberly Vantleven

LSU Master's Theses

Tracing Legends is a body of work involving three large books that hang on the wall as well as two smaller cabinet pieces. The work traces a conversation between my child-self and my adult-self using tales as a medium.

Expectation In Auditory Processing Of Environmental Sounds In People With Fluent Aphasia, Meghan Evelyn Collins

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the integrity of the nonverbal auditory system in subjects with fluent aphasia, and determine the relative preservation of the nonverbal auditory system in comparison to the lexical system. This was attempted through the task of expectation, a high level processing skill. Two groups of participants were examined: a group with fluent aphasia, and a group of non-neurologically damaged individuals. Participants were administered two nonverbal auditory conditions devoid of lexical information, a simple condition and a complex condition in which they were required to determine if the last sound heard in a sequence …

The Aggregate Harmony Metric And A Statistical And Visual Contextualization Of The Rehnquist Court: 50 Years Of Data, Peter A. Hook

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article contains aggregated data from fifty years of the annual matrixes of justice inter-agreement for particular Supreme Court terms published by the Harvard Law Review (1956 to 2005 terms). Aggregating how often any two justices sided together on cases for a particular term relative to the amount of cases the two justices heard together allows one to derive a measure of the particular term that reflects the relative amount of agreement or disagreement for the term. This new metric, called the Aggregate Harmony Metric, allows for comparative benchmarks. For instance, the 2005 term, with an aggregate agreement of 70%, …

Pile Capacity Utilization For Bridge Bents Designed Using Simplified Procedures, Md Rubiat Ferdous

LSU Master's Theses

Bent substructure systems are being used increasingly in bridge construction. Among the various bent systems, pile bents are considered a popular choice due to their effectiveness in reducing time and cost. They are constructed by first driving piles to a specified elevation above the ground surface. Then, a cast-in-place reinforced concrete bent cap ties the piles together at their top end. The current Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development Bridge Design Manual provides guidelines for the structural analysis and construction details for general use in the preparation of plans for pile bents. The manual allows the use of a simplified …

Internal Spaces, Regina Loch-Elvert

LSU Master's Theses

The abstract paintings in this thesis exhibition are about spatial relations deriving from landscapes. Memory, moods, feelings, and intuition, as well as color relations, shapes, expressive brushstrokes, and the paint itself are important elements in achieving the intended meaning and effects. My method involves painting and over-painting, changing the painting constantly until it is what I wanted it to become without knowing it in advance—a process in which the painting eventually becomes itself by its own volition. But when do I feel my painting is really finished? I feel like an adventurer, a discoverer, when I paint; I want something …

The Black Church And Political Mobilization Of African Americans, Misty Noel Johnson

LSU Master's Theses

This study investigates the political and social activities of black church congregations within a southern community by assessing the effectiveness of three churches in mobilizing their congregations and serving as channels for political communication. The study pays particular attention to the differences between affiliations within the black church, the influence of religious leaders on political involvement, attitudes regarding political involvement and political influences outside of the church. The thesis begins by placing the black church in its historical context —as a giver of spiritual and community orientation as well as a social and political mobilization agent. Using survey results from …

Assessment Of The Phosphorus Index For Louisiana, William Lucas Felicien

LSU Master's Theses

A phosphorus index is a semi-quantitative to qualitative model for assessing the potential for loss of soil and fertilizer phosphorus (P) to ground and surface water, therefore,eutrophication risk. The concept of a P Index is recent and popular, with most states having developed a P Index that is either a simplification or extension the original 1993 concept. The Louisiana P Index assigns ratings for P loss potential depending on soil properties, topography and land use. These ratings are intended to guide P fertilizer (including animal waste materials) application so as to preserve water quality. This project has examined measured loss …

Free Women Of Color And Slaveholding In New Orleans, 1810-1830, Anne Ulentin

LSU Master's Theses

Many free women of color lived in antebellum New Orleans. Free women of color tried hard to improve their lives, and engaged in a wide range of economic activities, including slaveholding. Numerous records show that free women of color owned slaves. It is hard to determine why free women of color engaged in such business. Free women of color’s relations with their slaves is controversial as it is difficult to assess why free black women would own slaves, but also buy, sell, and mortgage slaves. Free women of color’s status was exceptional due to specific patterns of manumission in Spanish …

The Relationship Between Defense Counsel, Policyholders, And Insurers: Nevada Rides Yellow Cab Toward "Two-Client" Model Of Tripartite Relationship. Are Cumis Counsel And Malpractice Claims By Insurers Next?, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

It happens constantly in civil litigation. An insurance company hires a lawyer to defend its policyholder from a third party’s claim of injury. But just who is the lawyer’s “client?” Is it the policyholder who is the named defendant in the case and is “represented” in court proceedings? Or is it the insurer who, in most cases, selected the attorney, pays the attorney, supervises the litigation, and has (by the terms of the liability insurance policy) the right to settle the case, even over the objections of the policyholder? Ordinarily, the liability insurer has both the duty to defend a …

The Implantation Of Western Theatre In Korea: Hong Hae-Sǒng (1894-1957), Korea's First Director, Saejoon Oh

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

While Korea experienced the threats of imperialist powers in the 19th century, and Japanese colonial rule in the early part of the 20th century, many Korean intellectuals expressed their nationalism through efforts to implant Western culture for the modernization of the Korean nation. They believed such activities would help to realize enlightenment and industrial development, the major conditions for assuring the independence of Korea and the survival of the nation. This attitude became known as Cultural Nationalism. The establishment of modern Korean theatre participated in the movement of Cultural Nationalism. Many leaders of Korean theatre tried to implant Western modern …