Digital Commons Network^™

Apocalypse South: Judgment, Cataclysm, And Resistance In The Regional Imaginary, Anthony Hoefer

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This project investigates manifestations of Apocalypse in selected works of southern fiction, each of which simultaneously draws upon the cosmology of southern evangelical Protestantism and disrupts that cosmology’s power to govern the discourses of race, class, and gender in the U.S. South. Apocalypse South proposes that invocations of the Apocalypse are signs of deferred meaning—of hidden histories of undifferentiation, hybridity, and contradiction which defy the prevailing discourses that configure social relationships in southern spaces and places. Southern religious culture maps Apocalypse onto the boundaries of race, class, and gender and imparts catastrophic consequences to their violations. However, the works investigated …

Conceptualizing Complicity In Alien Tort Cases, Chimene I. Keitner

UC Law Journal

The Alien Tort Statute (ATS) indisputably brings international law into U.S. courts. The question is: how much international law? The United States Supreme Court was recently precluded from addressing this question in cases involving alleged corporate complicity in the crime of apartheid because four judges recused themselves, leaving the Court without a quorum. The answer to this question can determine the outcome of cases brought against corporations for their alleged complicity in international law violations perpetrated by foreign governments. It will also shape the extent to which U.S. courts in ATS cases continue to interpret and apply international law, thereby …

Continuing Abuse Of The Hatch-Waxman Act By Pharmaceutical Patent Holders And The Failure Of The 2003 Amendments, Mathew Avery

UC Law Journal

The Hatch-Waxman Act of 1984 established a system whereby generic manufacturers can seek to market generic equivalents of a pioneer's patented drug prior to the patent's expiry. But the original Act also contained provisions that were exploited by patent holders to delay generic competition and thereby extend their monopoly sales. Congress amended the Hatch-Waxman Act to address these abusive practices with the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. This Note analyzes how the 2003 amendments failed to remedy exploitation of the Hatch-Waxman Act by pharmaceutical patent holders who use reverse payments and authorized generics to manipulate the 180-day market exclusivity given …

Quiescent Current Testing Of Cmos Data Converters, Siva Yellampalli

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Power supply quiescent current (IDDQ) testing has been very effective in VLSI circuits designed in CMOS processes detecting physical defects such as open and shorts and bridging defects. However, in sub-micron VLSI circuits, IDDQ is masked by the increased subthreshold (leakage) current of MOSFETs affecting the efficiency of I¬DDQ testing. In this work, an attempt has been made to perform robust IDDQ testing in presence of increased leakage current by suitably modifying some of the test methods normally used in industry. Digital CMOS integrated circuits have been tested successfully using IDDQ and IDDQ methods for physical defects. However, testing of …

Distributive Injustice And Private Law, Aditi Bagchi

UC Law Journal

Private law recognizes claims between individuals. Legal economists have argued that claims by the socially disadvantaged against the better off are best dealt with outside private law, primarily through tax and transfer. Most theorists of private law similarly oppose considerations of distributive justice in contract and tort because they have assumed that this would confer a windfall upon poor plaintiffs, and penalize wealthy defendants beyond their fair share. Private law theorists resist this moral arbitrariness; individual legal liability is supposed to reflect individual responsibility, and matters of distributive justice are a collective responsibility.

In this Article, I argue that even …

Identification Of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons In The Supercritical Pyrolysis Products Of Synthetic Jet Fuel S-8 And Methylcyclohexane, Jorge Oswaldo Ona Ruales

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Inside the pre-combustor fuel lines of future high-speed aircraft, at supercritical conditions, hydrocarbon fuels react to form polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and eventually solid deposits. These deposits can block fuel lines and lead to undesirable effects for the aircraft operation. To elucidate the pathways that lead to the formation of PAH (and ultimately, solids formation), the identification of the PAH products generated by the reactions is critical. In this context, two fuels have been analyzed: synthetic jet fuel S-8 and methylcyclohexane. Synthetic jet fuel S-8 is important due to its non-petroleum origin. Methylcyclohexane is important due to its endothermic behavior. …

Disney Goes Goofy: Agency, Delegation, And Corporate Governance, Marc I. Steinberg, Matthew D. Bivona

UC Law Journal

In the wake of the corporate debacles that have occurred in the last decade, there has been an increasing legislative and judicial focus on the reform of corporate governance standards. Such reforms, including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, sing the praises of independent directors in effectuating meaningful corporate governance. The Delaware courts as well have emphasized the importance of independent directors in the corporate governance framework.

The Delaware Supreme Court's decision in Disney seems to be a reaffirmation of the business judgment rule as applied to corporate directors; however, the court's highly-publicized decision ignores a crucial component of the case: the Delaware …

Duty To The Unborn: A Response To The Smolensky, Jaime King

UC Law Journal

Advances in assisted reproductive technology and genetic testing continue to offer parents a plethora of new reproductive choices. As a result, we now face significant moral and legal challenges regarding how to balance the interests of parents, children born through the procedure, and society as a whole. This Essay analyzes Professor Kirsten Smolensky's argument in favor of permitting children the right to sue their parents in tort law for manipulating their DNA prior to implantation to produce a disabling trait. While Smolensky's basic argument is sound, a more encompassing standard would create a duty to potential offspring to act as …

Insult To Injury: A Disability-Sensitive Response To Smolensky's Call For Parental Tort Liability For Preimplantation Genetic Interventions, Alicia R. Ouellette

UC Law Journal

In her article, Creating Children with Disabilities: Parental Tort Liability for Preimplantation Genetic Interventions, Professor Kirsten Rabe Smolensky argues that children who were subject to preimplantation genetic manipulation should have the ability to sue their parents for damages when the parents "directly intervene in the child's DNA and consequently cause that child to suffer a disability which limits the child's right to an open future." This Essay addresses the implications for people with disabilities of that argument. Specifically, it argues that limiting damages to cases in which a child is born with a disability unnecessarily and inaccurately devalues life with …

Teaching Presence: A Focus On The Instructor's Role In Online Collaborative Learning, Keisha Smith Dubuclet

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The use of e-learning has been extended beyond simply providing access to information to providing the ability to learn collaboratively via an interactive learning environment. The ability to create an online collaborative and interactive environment is a challenge. This study strove to examine the most effective design and facilitative strategies for fostering student learning and participation in hopes to make design and implementation of online discussions easier and more efficient for teachers. The primary goal of this study was to understand how the degree of instructor presence influenced students’ perception of learning and how students engaged in deeper levels of …

Intentional Diminishment, The Non-Identity Problem, And Legal Liability, I. Glenn Cohen

UC Law Journal

This Article, lying at the intersection of law and bioethics, examines whether it is wrongful to use assisted reproductive technology to intentionally create disabled children, and whether legal liability should attach to such acts. In particular, this Article considers the way these issues are intertwined with what philosophers have called the "Non-Identity Problem," the idea that so long as a resulting child will have a life worth living the child cannot be harmed by being brought into existence, because even an impoverished life is better than not existing at all.

In her article in this Issue, Kirsten Smolensky suggests that …

Creating Children With Disabilities: Parental Tort Liability For Preimplantation Genetic Interventions, Kirsten Rabe Smolensky

UC Law Journal

Using preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), parents can now screen embryos for genetic traits such as deafness and achondroplasia (dwarfism). Studies show that some parents intentionally choose embryos with disabilities because that genetic trait runs in the family. This recent trend raises the important legal question of whether a child can sue his parents in tort for selecting or engineering disabling genetic traits.

This Article suggests that children both can and should be able to successfully sue parents who engage in certain direct genetic interventions. First, tort law should protect a child's moral right to an open future where parents' preimplantation …

The Forgotten Frontier - Healthcare For Transgender Detainees In Immigration And Customs Enforcement Detention, Dana O'Day-Senior

UC Law Journal

a challenge for anyone, but for transgender individuals, the lack of healthcare policy specifically addressing the healthcare needs of transgender individuals can mean that ICE detention is hazardous to one's health. Many researchers have studied the challenges faced by transgender individuals in the prison setting, and many researchers have examined the problems with healthcare access and delivery in ICE detention facilities. However, so far no one has bridged the gap between the two areas of research and looked at the specific challenges ICE detention poses for healthcare for transgender individuals.

This Note attempts to bridge that gap by focusing into …

The Effectiveness Of Contextualization On Second Language Acquisition Using The Situational Discourse Semantic Model, Alice Marie Johnson

LSU Master's Theses

In traditional classrooms a second language is taught via thematic word sets, grammatical explanations, and patterned syntactic practice. This study compared the traditional teaching approach to a scaffolded teaching approach, consisting of words taught within a narrative context. Five fifth-grade students were taught Spanish as a second language during a ten-week intervention. Vocabulary learning and sentence generation were measured following each session, as well as a pre-posttest measure. Results showed that print was an important support used by participants in the traditional condition. However across time, vocabulary learning and sentence length increased significantly more in the scaffolded condition.

Essay 1: Does Ownership Structure Matter? Essay 2: Asset Sale In Mutual Fund Industry, Fan Chen

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The dissertation studies two aspects of the U.S. registered investment companies. The first essay analyzes the ownership and organizational structure aspect while the second essay investigates the restructure events of those investment companies. We find sellers from mutual fund asset sales are mainly financial conglomerates. Funds under management of those conglomerates experience poor performance during the period prior to asset sales. On the other hand, acquirers are generally highly focused mutual fund companies. Funds acquired by these focused entities experience improvement in both fund performance and operational efficiency. From the analysis of organizational structure, funds managed by focused mutual fund …

Prosecuting Elder Abuse: Setting The Gold Standard In The Golden State, Arthur Meirson

UC Law Journal

This Note proposes amending California's elder abuse law. Currently, California Penal Code sections 368(b) and (c) allow the prosecution of any person who willfully causes or permits a person they know to be an elder or dependent adult "to suffer, or inflicts thereon unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering." The failing of this law is its focus on the subjective experience of the elder or dependent adult victim. Because the law only allows punishment where the victim suffers or experiences unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering, there are numerous circumstances that allow a perpetrator of abuse to escape prosecution. These …

Toward The Next Generation Of Galanter-Influenced Scholars: The Influential Reach Of A Law-And-Society Founder, Jayanth K. Krishnan, Stewart Macaulay

Articles by Maurer Faculty

To say that Professor Marc Galanter's scholarship is diverse would be a woeful understatement. In his over forty years of writing, Galanter's work has covered topics including (but not limited to) torts, contracts, constitutional law, comparative law, empirical legal studies, the legal profession, legal anthropology, and South Asian studies. With Galanter's scholarship so heavily cited and respected, we see it as only fitting, particularly upon his recently turning seventy-five, to acknowledge his achievements in a symposium that reflects back on the years of his work. Serving as special editors to an issue forthcoming in the Duke Law School journal, Law …

Determining The Relative Efficacy Of Reciprocal And Non-Reciprocal Peer Tutoring For Students Identified As At-Risk For Academic Failure, Keri F. Menesses

LSU Master's Theses

The current study directly compared the academic and social gains of reciprocal peer tutoring, non-reciprocal peer tutoring, and traditional classroom instruction with elementary students. Participants included 59 students who performed below-average on class-wide screenings using curriculum-based measurement math probes. Students involved in peer tutoring were trained to tutor basic math facts using a constant time delay procedure. Both types of peer tutoring produced significantly larger academic gains than traditional classroom instruction; the two types of tutoring produced comparable academic and social results, although reciprocal tutoring resulted in marginally larger academic gains. Reciprocal peer tutoring is recommended based on the fact …

Administrative Responses To Hurricane-Induced Mobility, Christopher J. Fontenot

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita posed serious challenges to school systems as children displaced by the storms attended schools across Louisiana and in most of the states of the Union. This qualitative case study examined the administrative challenges of one school district that received over 6,800 new students in less than a month. Research questions posed in the study focused on the planning, placement, and support of displaced students, the leadership of the superintendent and principals in integrating displaced students into the district and schools, which problems arose, and whether any policies or procedures were changed as a result hurricane-induced mobility. …

Conversations On Citizenship: Young People's Perceptions And Performances Of Democratic Citizenship, Katherine Rhodes Knobloch

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this paper is to illuminate how the practice of democratic citizenship compares to ideals of it. I hope to provide a clear view of what contemporary democratic citizenship means, how this conception has been formed, and how democratic citizenship can be effectively practiced to serve the ideals held by democratic citizens. To do this, this paper will be comprised in several parts. After an initial explanation of the theoretical perspective used, I will explore how democracy was understood and implemented in the formative stages of United States government. Next I review contemporary practices of citizenship before examining …

The Perils And Empowerments Of Mountain Literacies: Reading Loss And Shifting Identities In Appalachian Memoirs And Novels, Erica Abrams Locklear

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes the literary portrayal of literacy events in memoirs and novels written by Appalachian women during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Drawing from contemporary literacy scholarship, my project engages several definitions of the term "literacy," including theories defining it as a technical skill, a social act, cultural knowledge, or a potent form of ideological power. In a region historically (and often inaccurately) stigmatized as illiterate, "literacy" is a loaded term, a concept doubly associated with cultural pride and with cultural loss. By applying literacy theories to Appalachian literature, I analyze the identity conflicts literacy attainment causes for several …

Improving Laws And Legal Authorities For Public Health Emergency Legal Preparedness, David Fidler, Robert M. Pestronk, Brian Kamoie, Gene Matthews, Georges C. Benjamin, Ralph T. Bryan, Socrates H. Tuch, Richard Gottfried, Jonathan E. Fielding, Fran Schmitz, Stephen Redd

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Book Review. Governing Through Crime: How The War On Crime Transformed American Democracy And Created A Culture Of Fear By Jonathan Simon, Jeannine Bell

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Fair Housing Act And Extralegal Terror, Jeannine Bell

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article examines the implications the Fair Housing Act (FHA) has on anti-integrationist racial violence faced by racial and ethnic minority's integrating white neighborhoods. The first part of the article describes anti-integrationist violence as it occurs in two separate but distinct time periods the first occurring, before the passage of the FHA. The second time period that article addresses is the post-1968 era until the present day. In discussing the period since the passage of the Act, the article describes several important mechanisms in how the FHA functions as a remedy for extralegal violence. The Article concludes with a call …

Determination Of Ctv-To-Itv Margin For Free-Breathing Respiratory-Gated Treatments Using 4dct And The Novalis Exactrac Gating System With Implanted Fiducials, Jason Edward Matney

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this project was to investigate the interplay between gating window characteristics and target margin required to compensate for residual motion during the gating window. This project investigated the accuracy of ExacTrac and 4DCT imaging localizing an implanted coil at various phases of respiration. Radiochromic film measured delivered dose patterns for selected gating intervals over a variety of respiratory patterns. In order to establish accurate dosimetry, this project implemented and tested an EBT radiochromic film dosimetry system. Film testing showed that the performance of a medical grade Vidar Dosimetry Pro radiographic film scanner and an Epson V700 Photo …

A Study Of Elementary School Children At Risk For Truancy: Exploring Gender Differences, Services Offered, And Other Factors Related To Truancy, Alice Joseph

LSU Master's Theses

This cross sectional, exploratory study examined the characteristics of elementary school children at risk for truancy. Furthermore, the study explored if there were any significant gender differences in the number of children referred to the TASC program. The current study also sought to answer if there were any gender differences in common problem areas reported to have an impact on truancy. Finally, any differences between children identified as low risk and high risk were also investigated. This study used secondary data analysis. Elementary school children (N = 23,459), grades Kindergarten through 4th grade who participated in the TASC program of …

Micropropagation Through Somatic Embryogenesis And Cotyledonary Nodal Culture In Sea Oats (Uniola Paniculata L.), Diptimayee Sahoo

LSU Master's Theses

Uniola paniculata, commonly known as sea oats, is a C4 perennial grass capable of stabilizing sand dunes. Although this species is extensively used in beach restoration projects, production and availability of sea oats seedlings is seriously constrained due to disappearance of the natural stands. Other limitations are poor seed production, seed dormancy, and low seedling survival. With increasing interest in dune restoration, an efficient micropropagation technique is essential to generate sea oats seedlings in mass scale. In this study an efficient, rapid and reproducible plant regeneration system was successfully established for sea oats through somatic embryogenesis and cotyledonary nodal culture. …

A Determination Of The Physical, Chemical, And Biological Features Of Suspended Dark Flecks In Hot Sauce, Andre Brock

LSU Master's Theses

Hot pepper and hot sauce production and consumption in the United States are on the rise. The demands of consumers need to be met by high-quality products in an increasingly competitive market. Increasingly knowledgeable and discerning consumers notice any problems in hot sauce, and problems with appearance are often the first noticed. A well-known and successful hot sauce company has found an occasional problem with discoloration in their flagship product. Small dark specks have been found in the sauce, and the company in question is interested in elucidating their makeup and cause. This is of especially pertinent scientific interest because …

Alzheimer's Caregiving Appraisal, Andre' Fortier

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the knowledge base of AD caregiving appraisal by understanding a connection of factors that influence caregiving appraisal. It is important for the profession of social work to understand the complexities which may impact the level of care and/or appraisal. A combination of research questions and hypotheses were devised to determine the influence of each factor and/or a combination of factors on caregiving appraisal. The survey comprises of six sections: demographics and stage of AD, burden, resilience, family strengths, ethnic awareness, and caregiving appraisal. The overall survey was designed by the researcher; …

Seeing (Red): A Qualitative Analysis Of The Product (Red) Campaign And Integration Of Public Relations And Marketing Theory, Amy Elizabeth Martin

LSU Master's Theses

In an effort to combat the AIDS epidemic around the world, the Product (RED) campaign aims to engage consumers in an “economic initiative” with exclusive products from their corporate partnerships. Academic journals claim that this effort is a new form of Cause-Related Marketing (CRM), even though it involves many Public Relations strategies and tactics. Product (RED)’s unique nature is unlike previous CRM campaigns due to its corporate partnership agreements. Researchers have not previously studied initiatives such as Product (RED) through either Public Relations or Marketing theories. David’s (2004) Convergence Theory creates a cyclical model to merge both Public Relations and …