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2008

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Eve's Prisoners, Tara Rene Ratliff Jan 2008

Eve's Prisoners, Tara Rene Ratliff

LSU Master's Theses

All women are the children of Eve and the children of the earth. With the work of Eve’s Prisoners, my aim was to create imagery about the transient stages of womankind and the timeless relationship the feminine ideal has with nature. We are born innocent and able to see the truth of things, but eventually we all imprison ourselves in our bodies, in language, and in our own nature. My pictures want to reconcile the innocence and the pain and to say that by accepting aging and death as part of life, we free ourselves from our own prisons.


Factors That Influence Traditional-Age College Students To Re-Enroll In Their Third Year At A Research Extensive University In The Southern Region Of The United States, Joseph M. Lutta Jan 2008

Factors That Influence Traditional-Age College Students To Re-Enroll In Their Third Year At A Research Extensive University In The Southern Region Of The United States, Joseph M. Lutta

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Student retention is of policy significance to higher education systems. In the United States, student retention is a major problem in higher education affecting students, universities, and society. Most of the research on student retention has focused on first-year students. Little is known about the retention of college students after their first year. The primary purpose of this study was to determine the influence of selected demographic and academic characteristics on the decision of traditional-age, undergraduate students to re-enroll at a research-extensive university. The population was defined as all traditional-age undergraduate students who entered the selected university during the fall …


Lattice Boltzmann Modeling For Mass Transport Equations In Porous Media, Borja Servan Camas Jan 2008

Lattice Boltzmann Modeling For Mass Transport Equations In Porous Media, Borja Servan Camas

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The aim of this dissertation is to extend the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) to cope with parameter heterogeneity and anisotropy in mass transport equations in porous media, as well as investigating the stability and accuracy. Although the LBM is a well known and effective numerical method to solve fluid flows, LBM has not been extensively applied to mass transport equations in porous medium flow yet, and only a few works can be found on improving LBM to cope with mass transport equations other than the diffusion and advection-diffusion equations. One of the reasons why LBM has not been extensively used …


Analyses Of High School Band Students' And Directors' Perceptions Of Verbal And Nonverbal Teaching Behaviors, Jennifer A. Whitaker Jan 2008

Analyses Of High School Band Students' And Directors' Perceptions Of Verbal And Nonverbal Teaching Behaviors, Jennifer A. Whitaker

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to document and explore the use and perception of verbal and nonverbal teaching behaviors of selected high school band directors. Participants were six successful high school band directors and members of their top-performing ensembles. Directors were videotaped during rehearsals. Videos were subsequently analyzed. Systematic observation data consisted of frequencies and percentages of conductor magnitude, filler use, and time spent on and off podium; frequency and time of each sequential pattern component; and instructional pacing. Directors and students viewed and rated video excerpts of their directors using 10-point Likert scales. Participants then completed a 22-item …


Walden Pond And The Performative Touristic Gaze, Daniel Christopher Bono Jan 2008

Walden Pond And The Performative Touristic Gaze, Daniel Christopher Bono

LSU Master's Theses

This is an ethnographic study of tourism at Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. I argue that Walden Pond operates as a site that creates tensions among visitors due to the ways that time has transformed the once serene landscape into an overcrowded swimming pool. These tensions, however, fall under the expectation that the State Reservation of Massachusetts (re)creates Thoreau’s Walden as suggested in his discourse, but the performance of history is enacted through the creation of meaning among visitors engaging in a dialogue that references the past, talking about a space that has cultural significance. Exploring the touristic experience and …


How To Remember Thee?: Problems Of Memorialization In English Writing, 1558-1625, Sean Flory Jan 2008

How To Remember Thee?: Problems Of Memorialization In English Writing, 1558-1625, Sean Flory

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the use of funeral commemoration in religious and political controversies in early modern England. By examining the rhetoric used in funeral sermons and elegies, I show that commemorative writers use figural interpretation of the Bible to legitimize praise by linking the deceased to characters from scripture. Figural interpretation places the dead into a framework of ecclesiastical history and creates Protestant saints used as exempla in political and religious debates. This dissertation examines funeral sermons, elegies, and other commemorative poems written between 1558 and 1625. Chapter one discusses the development of figural interpretation in Elizabethan funeral sermons. …


Fast Marching Methods - Parallel Implementation And Analysis, Maria Cristina Tugurlan Jan 2008

Fast Marching Methods - Parallel Implementation And Analysis, Maria Cristina Tugurlan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Fast Marching represents a very efficient technique for solving front propagation problems, which can be formulated as partial differential equations with Dirichlet boundary conditions, called Eikonal equation: $F(x)|\nabla T(x)|=1$, for $x \in \Omega$ and $T(x)=0$ for $x \in \Gamma$, where $\Omega$ is a domain in $\mathbb{R}^n$, $\Gamma$ is the initial position of a curve evolving with normal velocity F>0. Fast Marching Methods are a necessary step in Level Set Methods, which are widely used today in scientific computing. The classical Fast Marching Methods, based on finite differences, are typically sequential. Parallelizing Fast Marching Methods is a step forward for …


Baby Signs: Caregiver Perceptions Of Their Use And Benefit To Children, Leah Catherine Legere Jan 2008

Baby Signs: Caregiver Perceptions Of Their Use And Benefit To Children, Leah Catherine Legere

LSU Master's Theses

Gesture use is a precursor to spoken language, and children who exhibit frequent use of gesture have higher rates of speech comprehension and production when tested between 13 and 15 months of age (Bates et al, 1989). The purpose of this study was to learn more about caregivers’ perceptions of the use and benefits of sign to their children. Fifty-three caregivers were recruited for the study, and 33 (62%) of these caregivers reported that they had used or were currently using baby signs with one of their children. Six (18%) of these caregivers also reported that their children presented developmental …


Foreign News And Public Opinion: Attribute Agenda-Setting Theory Revisited, Asya A. Besova Jan 2008

Foreign News And Public Opinion: Attribute Agenda-Setting Theory Revisited, Asya A. Besova

LSU Master's Theses

This study contributes to the body of research on public opinion and media coverage of foreign news by examining the coverage of nine foreign countries in The New York Times and The Times. Media coverage and the public opinion about foreign nations were strongly correlated. Specifically, negative coverage tends to have more agenda-setting effects than neutral and positive coverage. The findings also suggest that media portray foreign countries in a unidimensional fashion, by limiting the coverage around a few policy issues. Finally, the U.S. and the U.K. media coverage of foreign nations were very similar.


The Gallant Six Hundred: Performing The Light Brigade Into A Heroic Icon, Elizabeth Carrick Cawns Jan 2008

The Gallant Six Hundred: Performing The Light Brigade Into A Heroic Icon, Elizabeth Carrick Cawns

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

History is not so much what actually happened as how we have received and disseminated what happened. This reception and dissemination take place through a variety of media, many of which are not the purview of the traditional historian. It is in the trifles of daily life that we find the patterns of cultural norms – the ethos of the society that is as unnoticed by that society as the air it breathes. Society makes choices that affect the future based on what has been disseminated, rather than on the original event. This is especially true of such military disasters …


A Comparison Of The Moral Development Of Advertising And Journalism Students, Stephanie Marino Jan 2008

A Comparison Of The Moral Development Of Advertising And Journalism Students, Stephanie Marino

LSU Master's Theses

This study employed the Defining Issues Test (DIT) to complete the analysis and comparison of the moral development of mass communication students, specifically those who major in advertising and journalism. The DIT is an instrument based on Kohlberg’s moral development theory and is a device for assessing the extent to which a person has developed his or her moral schemas. Results indicate no statistically significant difference in levels of moral development between sampled students majoring in journalism and advertising; no difference in levels of moral development between students who have and have not completed a course in media ethics; and …


Analysis Of The Impact And Importance Of Re-Wholesalers In The Ornamental Market, Marco Absalón Velástegui Jan 2008

Analysis Of The Impact And Importance Of Re-Wholesalers In The Ornamental Market, Marco Absalón Velástegui

LSU Master's Theses

Sales by ornamental nurseries in the United States have grown, recently, at an impressive rate. For example, sales of the greenhouse and nursery crops component increased about 18% from 2000 to 2006 (USDA, 2007). The evolution of a diverse set of market channel alternatives, including the garden center, landscaper, home center, mass merchandiser and re-wholesaler channels, has been one of the reasons for this growth. Knowledge about growers’ use of the individual marketing channels is indispensable for the development of appropriate sales strategies for better income and profits. Periodic survey data indicates that the re-wholesaler channel is a frequently used …


Synthesis Of Disubstituted Amino Acids And Peptide Inhibitors Of Amyloid Beta Aggregation, Gregory Todd Mccandless Jan 2008

Synthesis Of Disubstituted Amino Acids And Peptide Inhibitors Of Amyloid Beta Aggregation, Gregory Todd Mccandless

LSU Master's Theses

The aggregation process of amyloid beta from monomeric peptide to oligomers and fibrils is believed to be connected with the neurological disorder Alzheimer’s disease. The focus of this research is the synthesis of alpha, alpha-disubstituted amino acids and peptide inhibitors of amyloid beta aggregation. The inhibitors are designed to interrupt (or alter) this process by binding to amyloid beta’s central hydrophobic core region (residues 17-20, Leucine-Valine- Phenylalanine-Phenylalanine). Target specificity is achieved via self recognition by basing the inhibitors on the sequence in this region. The inclusion of disubstituted amino acids in the sequence of the inhibitors will provide a blocking …


Landscape Analysis Of Vegetation Change In Coastal Louisiana Following Hurricanes Katrina And Rita, Gregory Dean Steyer Jan 2008

Landscape Analysis Of Vegetation Change In Coastal Louisiana Following Hurricanes Katrina And Rita, Gregory Dean Steyer

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Investigations of hurricane disturbances on coastal vegetated communities are common, but relatively few are comprehensive across broad geographic regions. The 2005 hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, exposed Louisiana coastal landscapes to physical modifications and extensive and prolonged flooding, resulting in measurable physicochemical changes. This research used remote sensing and field investigations to regionally assess (1) porewater salinity and sulfide impacts to and recovery of coastal Louisiana vegetation communities, and (2) the importance of mineral sediment deposition on accretionary processes. Hurricane effects were most direct and prominent in eastern Louisiana from Katrina and western Louisiana from Rita, compared to central Louisiana exposed …


Entertainment Media And "Backstage" Event Framing: How 24 Defines Torture, Skye Chance Cooley Jan 2008

Entertainment Media And "Backstage" Event Framing: How 24 Defines Torture, Skye Chance Cooley

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of the current study is to examine how the prime time television show 24 frames torture by US government officials almost exclusively in scenarios of high-consequence, high-confidence that are not supported by public opinion polls, provide contextual rationalizations that are unrealistic, show torture methods as a viable means to gain needed information, and show enemy combatants torturing U.S. citizens. Through a quantitative content analysis of torture on the television series 24 and an analysis of focus groups’ reactions to select episodes of 24 portraying torture in such scenarios, the study seeks to investigate the role of entertainment media …


The Investigation Of Treatment Outcomes For Adults With Chronic Brain Injury Following Intensive Multidisciplinary Treatment, Donna Mineo Fitzgerald-Dejean Jan 2008

The Investigation Of Treatment Outcomes For Adults With Chronic Brain Injury Following Intensive Multidisciplinary Treatment, Donna Mineo Fitzgerald-Dejean

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Although communication sciences and disorders (COMD) research supports intensive treatment for individuals with chronic brain injury, funding to provide these services is limited. This study explored the use of interdepartmental university resources to provide an intensive, multidisciplinary chronic brain injury program. Methodologically, treatment regimes were designed with clinical faculty as practicum experiences for COMD master’s degree students. Subjects with a single onset head injury or cerebral vascular accident greater than one year were recruited to participate in the Intensive Treatment, Weekly Treatment or Control Groups. Pre, Post, and Post-Post Testing were used to measure cognitive-linguistic, quality of life and physical …


Ancient Greek And Ancient Hebrew Agrarianism: An Ecocritical Study Of Hesiod's Works And Days And The Book Of Proverbs, Ernest Nathan Manning Jan 2008

Ancient Greek And Ancient Hebrew Agrarianism: An Ecocritical Study Of Hesiod's Works And Days And The Book Of Proverbs, Ernest Nathan Manning

LSU Master's Theses

The subject of this thesis revolves around the “Western” view of nature and its social origins. The author advances the subject through a comparison of two ancient texts: Hesiod’s Works and Days and the Old Testament book of Proverbs. He concludes that the Western view of nature gestated in agricultural societies of small-farmers who saw themselves as being both part of and separate from the natural world. Their ability to control nature being limited, they saw civilization as fulfilling a limited agricultural role in the cosmos, as being different but part of and not controlling the whole. In the last …


Phonemic Awareness And Sight Word Reading In Toddlers, Alicia Tonya Mcinnis Jan 2008

Phonemic Awareness And Sight Word Reading In Toddlers, Alicia Tonya Mcinnis

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigated emerging phonemic awareness skills and printed sight word recognition abilities in two-year-old toddlers using plain text and MorphoPhonic Face words on flash cards. MorphoPhonic Face words were used to determine if this learning process is enhanced when words are iconically represented to show the first sound and the word's meaning (purposefully creating idiosyncratic cues) using pictures superimposed into the letters. Sixteen (16) age-matched toddlers were assigned to alternate treatment groups and received exposure to both printed and MorphoPhonic pictured words three times weekly for six weeks. During each session, children were taught 16 sight words (8 in …


The Initial Reliability And Construct Validity Of The Autism Spectrum Disorder-Diagnostic (Asd-Dc) In Children, Melissa Luke Gonzalez Jan 2008

The Initial Reliability And Construct Validity Of The Autism Spectrum Disorder-Diagnostic (Asd-Dc) In Children, Melissa Luke Gonzalez

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The aim of the present study was to examine the reliability and construct validity of a newly developed assessment scale designed to identify autism spectrum disorders in children: Autism Spectrum Disorder-Diagnostic for Children (ASD-DC). Participants were parents and caregivers of children between ages 2 and 16 years, who are typically developing or developmentally delayed. Participants were asked to complete several rating scales including the ASD-DC, a DSM-IV-TR/ICD-10 checklist, the Matson Evaluation of Social Skills in Youngsters (MESSY), and the Behavioral Assessment System for Children, Version 2 (BASC-2). In Study 1, the test-retest, inter-rater, and inter-item reliabilities of the ASD-DC was …


A Novel Automated Approach Of Multi-Modality Retinal Image Registration And Fusion, Hua Cao Jan 2008

A Novel Automated Approach Of Multi-Modality Retinal Image Registration And Fusion, Hua Cao

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Biomedical image registration and fusion are usually scene dependent, and require intensive computational effort. A novel automated approach of feature-based control point detection and area-based registration and fusion of retinal images has been successfully designed and developed. The new algorithm, which is reliable and time-efficient, has an automatic adaptation from frame to frame with few tunable threshold parameters. The reference and the to-be-registered images are from two different modalities, i.e. angiogram grayscale images and fundus color images. The relative study of retinal images enhances the information on the fundus image by superimposing information contained in the angiogram image. Through the …


Effect Of Hydrated Lime On The Laboratory Performance Of Superpave Mixtures, Md Sharear Kabir Jan 2008

Effect Of Hydrated Lime On The Laboratory Performance Of Superpave Mixtures, Md Sharear Kabir

LSU Master's Theses

Permanent deformation and moisture damage are the most common distresses found in asphalt pavements today. Extensive experimental studies have revealed that the use of hydrated lime in Hot-Mix Asphalt (HMA) mixtures can reduce permanent deformation, long-term aging, and moisture susceptibility of mixtures. In addition, it increases the stiffness and fatigue resistance of mixtures. The objectives of this study were to evaluate (1) the fundamental engineering properties of HMA mixtures containing hydrated lime compared to conventional mixtures designed to meet the current Louisiana Superpave specifications and (2) the influence of the method of addition of hydrated lime on the mechanical properties …


An Examination Of The Good Behavior Game And Behavior Specific Praise Statements On Student And Teacher Behavior, Robert Allen Wright Jan 2008

An Examination Of The Good Behavior Game And Behavior Specific Praise Statements On Student And Teacher Behavior, Robert Allen Wright

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study directly compares two interdependent group oriented contingency strategies, the GBG and the GBG with a behavior specific praise statement (BSPS) component (i.e., GBG+BSPS) to examine the relative effectiveness of each as a tool for class-wide behavior management, to inspect the effect on teacher interactions with students, and to assess the relative teacher and student acceptability of both games. The Good Behavior Game has been identified as an evidence-based intervention to manage class-wide behavior difficulties, but recently has been criticized for not being proactive in teaching appropriate classroom behavior. The relative effectiveness and acceptability of each game as a …


Performing Photographs: Memory, History, And Display, Melanie A. Kitchens Jan 2008

Performing Photographs: Memory, History, And Display, Melanie A. Kitchens

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In my study, I place concepts and practices of photography and performance in dialogue to enable our understanding of how photographs perform and how performance contains or can contain elements we attribute to photographs. The connection between photography and performance that most intrigues me is how they make memories and when collected or restored in some socially shared way make histories too. My specific aim is to understand how photographs and performance might benefit from each other in how they make and transmit memories and histories. To activate the study, I select and focus on five specific events in which …


The Second Coming Of Paisley: Militant Fundamentalism And Ulster Politics In A Transatlantic Context, Richard Lawrence Jordan Jan 2008

The Second Coming Of Paisley: Militant Fundamentalism And Ulster Politics In A Transatlantic Context, Richard Lawrence Jordan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Jordan, Richard L. B. A. University of Southern Mississippi, 2000. M. A. University of Southern Mississippi, 2002. Doctor of Philosophy, Fall Commencement, 2008. Major: History. The Second Coming of Paisley: Militant Fundamentalism and Ulster Politics in a Transatlantic Context. Dissertation directed by Associate Professor Meredith Veldman. Pages in dissertation, 345. Words in Abstract, 277. ABSTRACT On August 1, 1946, the Reverend Ian Paisley was ordained as the minister of the Ravenhill Evangelical Mission Church in Belfast, Northern Ireland. From his new pulpit, the young evangelist embarked on a six-decade crusade attacking Irish theological and political issues and espousing militant fundamentalism …


Evaluation Of Three Methods For Teaching Intraverbals To Children With Language Delays, Nicole Trosclair-Lasserre Jan 2008

Evaluation Of Three Methods For Teaching Intraverbals To Children With Language Delays, Nicole Trosclair-Lasserre

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Direct instruction is often necessary to develop language or expand language use in individuals with language delays. Previous research has begun to identify certain training conditions that result in more efficient use of instructional time devoted to language development. Specifically, incorporating mands into the instructional arrangement, increasing the quality of reinforcement delivered for interspersed tasks, and including instructive feedback stimuli into the consequences of learning trials have all demonstrated more efficient learning of targeted language skills. The purpose of the current investigation was to compare three methods for teaching intraverbals (i.e., conversation skills) to individuals with deficits in this area. …


Predicting Conduct Problems In Youth: The Moderating Effects Of Hurricane Katrina, Julia F. Vigna Jan 2008

Predicting Conduct Problems In Youth: The Moderating Effects Of Hurricane Katrina, Julia F. Vigna

LSU Master's Theses

This study explored the moderating effects of disaster exposure on the relationships between youth conduct problems and a variety of risk and protective factors in a low-income population. Specifically, the study tests the moderating roles of hurricane-related life-threatening events and loss/disruption on the relations between conduct problems and violence exposure, social support, parenting behaviors, and family routines, respectively. This study draws data from an existing dataset, comprised of 281 displaced mother-child dyads from New Orleans and 98 non-displaced mother-child dyads from Baton Rouge, a city approximately 85 miles west of New Orleans. It was predicted that heightened conduct problems would …


Message Framing And Interactivity In Direct-To-Consumer Internet Advertisements: Visual And Textual Cues On Web Sites For Prescription Medications, Brooke Alayne Harrington Jan 2008

Message Framing And Interactivity In Direct-To-Consumer Internet Advertisements: Visual And Textual Cues On Web Sites For Prescription Medications, Brooke Alayne Harrington

LSU Master's Theses

Americans’ adoption of the Internet has spawned the increased usage of this medium for direct-to-consumer advertising by pharmaceutical manufacturers, despite the widespread controversy over the ethics of the practice, the educational value of direct-to-consumer advertising, and the ultimate cost of the practices to the public. While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulates the industry’s advertising within traditional media, the agency does not yet impose standards for direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medications on the Internet. This content analysis of the visual and textual cues of 100 direct-to-consumer Web sites for prescription medications identifies the unexpected strong presence of gain frames …


The Integration Of Mosquito Avian Host Preference With West Nile Virus Activity In Wild Bird And Mosquito Populations In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Jessica Erin Brauch Jan 2008

The Integration Of Mosquito Avian Host Preference With West Nile Virus Activity In Wild Bird And Mosquito Populations In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Jessica Erin Brauch

LSU Master's Theses

West Nile virus (WNV) infection rates in wild birds and mosquitoes, and the blood-feeding patterns of mosquitoes were examined at two study sites in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to identify the potential avian reservoir hosts and mosquito vectors of West Nile virus (WNV). Blood samples from a total of 2,442 wild birds in the orders Passeriformes, Piciformes and Columbiformes were collected from May 2006 to April 2008 and tested for the presence of WNV RNA using RT-PCR and antibodies to WNV using an epitope-blocking ELISA. WNV was detected in 3.77% of wild bird blood samples and antibodies to WNV were detected …


Ellen G. White And Mental Health, Merlin D. Burt Jan 2008

Ellen G. White And Mental Health, Merlin D. Burt

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Beating The Spin-Down Limit On Gravitational Wave Emission From The Crab Pulsar, B. Abbott, R. Abbott, R. Adhikari, P. Ajith, B. Allen, G. Allen, R. Amin, S. B. Anderson, W. G. Anderson, M. A. Arain, M. Araya, H. Armandula, P. Armor, Y. Aso, S. Aston, P. Aufmuth, C. Aulbert, S. Babak, S. Ballmer, H. Bantilan, B. C. Barish, C. Barker, D. Barker, B. Barr, P. Barriga, M. A. Barton, M. Bastarrika, K. Bayer, J. Betzwieser, P. T. Beyersdorf, I. A. Bilenko, Tiffany Z. Summerscales Jan 2008

Beating The Spin-Down Limit On Gravitational Wave Emission From The Crab Pulsar, B. Abbott, R. Abbott, R. Adhikari, P. Ajith, B. Allen, G. Allen, R. Amin, S. B. Anderson, W. G. Anderson, M. A. Arain, M. Araya, H. Armandula, P. Armor, Y. Aso, S. Aston, P. Aufmuth, C. Aulbert, S. Babak, S. Ballmer, H. Bantilan, B. C. Barish, C. Barker, D. Barker, B. Barr, P. Barriga, M. A. Barton, M. Bastarrika, K. Bayer, J. Betzwieser, P. T. Beyersdorf, I. A. Bilenko, Tiffany Z. Summerscales

Faculty Publications

We present direct upper limits on gravitational wave emission from the Crab pulsar using data from the first 9 months of the fifth science run of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). These limits are based on two searches. In the first we assume that the gravitational wave emission follows the observed radio timing, giving an upper limit on gravitational wave emission that beats indirect limits inferred from the spin-down and braking index of the pulsar and the energetics of the nebula. In the second we allow for a small mismatch between the gravitational and radio signal frequencies and interpret …