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2008

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Developing Writing Fluency Through Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication, Rossana Camacho Dec 2008

Developing Writing Fluency Through Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication, Rossana Camacho

Theses and Dissertations

Drawing from sociocultural theory, this research investigated the effects of synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) in the development of writing fluency. Likewise, the study aimed at confirming previously cited affective benefits linked to SCMC. Measuring fluency in words per 30 minutes, the study compared pre and post-test essay scores of two groups of ESL learners (a control group and a SCMC group) in two intermediate levels. Two evaluation questionnaires were also administered to the SCMC group in order to obtain students' opinions of this technology-based medium, and to analyze change in their perceptions. The SCMC group outperformed the control group in …

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Search For The Standard Model Higgs Boson In The Missing Energy And Acoplanar B-Jet Topology At √S = 1.96 Tev, V. M. Abazov, Kenneth A. Bloom, Gregory R. Snow, D0 Collaboration Dec 2008

Search For The Standard Model Higgs Boson In The Missing Energy And Acoplanar B-Jet Topology At √S = 1.96 Tev, V. M. Abazov, Kenneth A. Bloom, Gregory R. Snow, D0 Collaboration

Kenneth Bloom Publications

We report a search for the standard model Higgs boson in the missing energy and acoplanar b-jet topology, using an integrated luminosity of 0.93 fb-1 recorded by the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron pp Collider. The analysis includes signal contributions from pp → ZH → ννbb, as well as from WH production in which the charged lepton from the W boson decay is undetected. Neural networks are used to separate signal from background. In the absence of a signal, we set limits on σ (pp → VH) x B(H → bb) at the 95% …

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Cal Poly Students Collect More Than 400 Gifts For Low-Income Children, Public Affairs Office Dec 2008

Cal Poly Students Collect More Than 400 Gifts For Low-Income Children, Public Affairs Office

Press Releases

No abstract provided.

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Comparative Hydrodynamic Testing Of Small Scale Models, Jared Acosta Dec 2008

Comparative Hydrodynamic Testing Of Small Scale Models, Jared Acosta

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Early in the ship design process, naval architects must often evaluate and compare multiple hull forms for a specific set of requirements. Analytical tools are useful for quick comparisons, but they usually specialize in a specific hull type and are therefore not adequate for comparing dissimilar hull types. Scale model hydrodynamic testing is the traditional evaluation method, and is applicable to most hull forms. Scale model tests are usually performed on the largest model possible in order to achieve the most accurate performance predictions. However, such testing is very resource intensive, and is therefore not a cost effective method of …

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Bumbling Biddies And Drunken Pats: Anti-Irish Humor In Antebellum New Orleans, Ashley Barckett Dec 2008

Bumbling Biddies And Drunken Pats: Anti-Irish Humor In Antebellum New Orleans, Ashley Barckett

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The Irish in New Orleans have been a notoriously understudied group. With the third largest Irish population in the country by 1860, New Orleans is crucial when trying to understand the Irish immigrant experience. Viewing the Irish from the public perspective, this study explores the Daily Picayune, New Orleans' largest newspaper, from its inception in 1837 to 1857, to decipher the city's attitudes towards the Irish. Jokes in particular are explored, their function being multifaceted. First, jokes grouped Irish women into three types in an effort to maintain control of a large and unfamiliar group of white women who did …

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Draumkvedet And The Medieval English Dream Vision: A Study Of Genre, Christian Carlsen Dec 2008

Draumkvedet And The Medieval English Dream Vision: A Study Of Genre, Christian Carlsen

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The Medieval English dream vision evidence influences from a variety of earlier vision literature, notably the apocalyptic vision and narrative dream. Philosophical visions by Plato, Cicero and Boethius, and Christian revelations of John and Paul contain traits that found their way into the dream poems by Langland, the Pearl poet and Chaucer. The Norwegian ballad Draumkvedet exhibits features that mirror these English visions. Notable characteristics pertaining to the character of the dreamer, the interplay between dreamer and dream, imagery of the vision, and structure, point to a common set of generic influences. Comparing Draumkvedet with its English counterparts demonstrates that …

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Glucose And Glucosamine Derivatives As Novel Low Molecular Weight Gelators, Sherwin Cheuk Dec 2008

Glucose And Glucosamine Derivatives As Novel Low Molecular Weight Gelators, Sherwin Cheuk

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Low molecular weight gelators (LMWGs) are small molecules that are capable of entrapping solvents to form a gel in organic solvents or aqueous solution. These compounds rely solely on noncovalent forces to form the fibrous networks necessary to entrap a variety of solvents. The organogels and hydrogels thus formed could have applications in a variety of fields from environmental to biological to medicinal. Carbohydrates are ideal starting materials to synthesize LMWGs, because of their natural abundance, dense chirality, and biocompatibility. D-Glucose is the most common monosaccharide and D-glucosamine is isolated from natural sources, such as crab shells. Several series of …

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Quality In Education: Perspectives Regarding Baldrige-Based Practices And Instructional Leadership In Middle Schools, Felicia Maria Vaughn Coleman Dec 2008

Quality In Education: Perspectives Regarding Baldrige-Based Practices And Instructional Leadership In Middle Schools, Felicia Maria Vaughn Coleman

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

School systems nationwide confront declines in the number of principal applicants while facing increasing student accountability concerns. The idiosyncrasies of adolescent development and the social nature of the educational environment reflect the declines in applicants and impact student accountability. Using a three-tiered case study, the present research inquiry identified perspectives of superintendents, middle school principals, and middle school teachers regarding Baldrige-based practices in the four Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award-winning school districts in the United States. This study's data illuminated how a non-prescriptive framework such as the Baldrige National Quality Program (BNQP) combined with Baldrige Education Criteria for Performance Excellence …

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Development Of A Borehole Log Signature For Oceanic Anoxic Events And Its Application To The Gulf Of Mexico, Asani Brewton Dec 2008

Development Of A Borehole Log Signature For Oceanic Anoxic Events And Its Application To The Gulf Of Mexico, Asani Brewton

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Oceanic anoxic events (OAEs) are periods in Earth's history when oceans were depleted in dissolved oxygen and characterized by deposition of organic-rich sediments. The Oceanic Drilling Program (ODP) has drilled through OAEs in a number of areas worldwide, collecting core and borehole log data. This project attempts to identify a characteristic signature from known ODP OAE sections using these data and to apply the signature to identify OAE intervals in Gulf of Mexico wells where cores are lacking. Additionally, pseudo density curves were generated from ODP logs and compared to bulk density logs to determine if the deviation between the …

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Light Suite, Jessica Fiorini Dec 2008

Light Suite, Jessica Fiorini

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Light Suite is a collection of the work I produced during my enrollment in the University of New Orleans Low Residency M.F.A. program. The writing, format and length styles reflect my experimentation with my craft. It also provides insight as to what my "poetic voice" is. Light Suite attempts to entwine personal experience with engaged observation and occasional flights of fantasy. The following poems illustrate my attempt at diversifying personal, poetic style. There are travel, prose, and accidental meaning poems. There are poems that feature personal narrative and collaboration. All of my works do share one characteristic and that is …

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Response Of Barrier Island Fish Assemblages To Impacts From Multiple Hurricanes: Assessing Resilience Of Chandeleur Island Fish Assemblages To Hurricanes Ivan (2004) And Katrina (2005), Mark Chad Ellinwood Dec 2008

Response Of Barrier Island Fish Assemblages To Impacts From Multiple Hurricanes: Assessing Resilience Of Chandeleur Island Fish Assemblages To Hurricanes Ivan (2004) And Katrina (2005), Mark Chad Ellinwood

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Hurricanes can temporarily disrupt seasonal patterns of fish assemblage change or result in permanent changes in fish assemblages. I studied the effects of two hurricanes on fish assemblages at the Chandeleur Islands and the possible influence that storm-generated tidal channels may have on the composition of local fish assemblages. I also compared recently collected data to historic ichthyofaunal survey data collected over thirty years ago at the Chandeleur Islands. Near shore fish assemblages changed the most after hurricanes but changes in species composition were primarily due to increases in abundance and diversity. During July 2007 there was no significant difference …

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Beyond Katrina, Designing A Unique Charter School In New Orleans: Community, Pedagogy, Governance, Finance, And Bureaucracy, Patricia Glaser Dec 2008

Beyond Katrina, Designing A Unique Charter School In New Orleans: Community, Pedagogy, Governance, Finance, And Bureaucracy, Patricia Glaser

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This study is a qualitative, autoethnographic study documenting the process of writing and submitting a charter school application in Post-Katrina New Orleans. The focus of the study is my professional journey to this point, and the journey the charter team. The school's mission and curriculum is unique and centered on special needs students who are "at-risk" for learning due to language and learning differences. Particular aspects of curriculum and instruction, climate and culture, professional development, student achievement goals, administration, and operational issues were developed by this team. The aim of the study is for this investigation to contribute to the …

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The Impact Of Growth Management Policies On Urban Form: Evidence From U.S. Metropolitan Areas With Growth Management Policies, Muhammed Islam Dec 2008

The Impact Of Growth Management Policies On Urban Form: Evidence From U.S. Metropolitan Areas With Growth Management Policies, Muhammed Islam

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The contemporary urban development pattern in the United States is characterized by land consumptive nature of development, such as a sprawled development pattern. Out of concern that the social and environmental costs of this development pattern outweigh their benefits, cities, counties and states have created a wide range of policy instruments designed to manage urban growth and to protect open spaces from development. The present research deals with such strategies in three study areas namely Portland Metropolitan Area, OR; Montgomery County, MD; and Orange County, FL in order to find out if growth management strategies have been able to reduce …

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Otherness And Assimilation: The Poetry Of Double-Consciousness In The Works Of Charles Simic, Marilyn Chin, And Susan Atefat-Peckham, Katherine Kidder Dec 2008

Otherness And Assimilation: The Poetry Of Double-Consciousness In The Works Of Charles Simic, Marilyn Chin, And Susan Atefat-Peckham, Katherine Kidder

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines assimilation and double-consciousness in the poetry of Charles Simic, Marilyn Chin, and Susan Atefat-Peckham. Each of these three poets writes in English in an American setting but has a different heritage. Simic is a native Yugoslavian (Serbia) who fled Europe during WWII. Chin arrived in the U.S. from Hong Kong as a child, and Atefat-Peckham is a first-generation American raised by Iranian parents. Each of these poets expresses some degree of assimilation and double-consciousness (as described by various theorists including W.E.B. Du Bois and Werner Sollors, among others) through the form and content of their poetry. This …

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Spring Break: The Economic, Socio-Cultural And Public Governance Impacts Of College Students On Spring Break Host Locations, John Laurie Dec 2008

Spring Break: The Economic, Socio-Cultural And Public Governance Impacts Of College Students On Spring Break Host Locations, John Laurie

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Spring Break, which has been transformed from a rather mild mid-winter vacation to a cultural rite over the past seventy-years, allows students to bring their values en masse to the host locations they visit. While only visiting these locales for a short time, college students nonetheless significantly impact the economic, public governance and socio-cultural processes of their Spring Break host locations. This dissertation explores the process of how and why students choose these locations and the impacts that occur as a result. A quantitative approach is used to determine the level of impact on a host location's economic, socio-cultural and …

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A Semi-Supervised Information Extraction Framework For Large Redundant Corpora, Eric Normand Dec 2008

A Semi-Supervised Information Extraction Framework For Large Redundant Corpora, Eric Normand

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The vast majority of text freely available on the Internet is not available in a form that computers can understand. There have been numerous approaches to automatically extract information from human- readable sources. The most successful attempts rely on vast training sets of data. Others have succeeded in extracting restricted subsets of the available information. These approaches have limited use and require domain knowledge to be coded into the application. The current thesis proposes a novel framework for Information Extraction. From large sets of documents, the system develops statistical models of the data the user wishes to query which generally …

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Assessment Of Ambient Air Particulate Matter In The New Orleans Historic District , Federico Portillo Dec 2008

Assessment Of Ambient Air Particulate Matter In The New Orleans Historic District , Federico Portillo

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Particulate matter in the ambient air of down-town New Orleans, LA, is not currently recorded by any government, state, or private organization. This research quantified particulate matter (PM) and its metal concentration in ambient air of the New Orleans Historic District. Both, PM10 (PM less than 10 micron in size) and PM2.5 (PM less than 2.5 micron in size) were quantified by gravimetric analysis using an Andersen Dichotomous Sampler (Series 240). Posterior to gravimetric analysis, the filters were analyzed with a fluorescent test method using an Innov-X Portable XRF Analyzer (Model A-6500). This study demonstrated that the ambient air of …

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Abrupt Climate Change And Storm Surge Impacts In Coastal Louisiana In 2050, Jay Ratcliff Dec 2008

Abrupt Climate Change And Storm Surge Impacts In Coastal Louisiana In 2050, Jay Ratcliff

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The most critical hazards impacting the world today are the affects of climate change and global warming. Scientists have been studying the Earth's climate for centuries and have come to agreement that our climate is changing, and has changed, many times abruptly over the history of our planet. This research focuses on the impacts of global warming related to increased hurricane intensities and their surge responses along the coast of the State of Louisiana. Surge responses are quantified for storms that could potentially occur under present climate but 50 years into the future on a coast subjected to current erosion …

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Reconstructing Textual File Fragments Using Unsupervised Machine Learning Techniques, Brian Roux Dec 2008

Reconstructing Textual File Fragments Using Unsupervised Machine Learning Techniques, Brian Roux

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This work is an investigation into reconstructing fragmented ASCII files based on content analysis motivated by a desire to demonstrate machine learning's applicability to Digital Forensics. Using a categorized corpus of Usenet, Bulletin Board Systems, and other assorted documents a series of experiments are conducted using machine learning techniques to train classifiers which are able to identify fragments belonging to the same original file. The primary machine learning method used is the Support Vector Machine with a variety of feature extractions to train from. Additional work is done in training committees of SVMs to boost the classification power over the …

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School Counselors' Perceptions Of Their Academic Preparation In Their Roles As Professional School Counselors, Libby Ann Schayot Dec 2008

School Counselors' Perceptions Of Their Academic Preparation In Their Roles As Professional School Counselors, Libby Ann Schayot

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this study was perceptions of professional school counselors' (PSC) graduate preparation in their roles as school counselors. The relationships examined were PSCs' roles and the number of hours completed in the school counselors' graduate programs, PSCs' roles and the level of their professional identity, and PSCs' roles and the number of school counseling specialty courses completed in their school counseling graduate programs. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA, 2005) and the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP, 2001) have established standards for school counselors to master in their programs. These standards were used …

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Preferences In Musical Rhythms And Implementation Of Analytical Results To Generate Rhythms, Shashidhar Sorakayala Dec 2008

Preferences In Musical Rhythms And Implementation Of Analytical Results To Generate Rhythms, Shashidhar Sorakayala

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Rhythm is at the heart of all music. It is the variation of the duration of sound over time. A rhythm has two components: one is the striking of an instrument – called the "onset" – and the other is silence. Historically, musical forms and works were preferred and became popular by their rhythmic properties. Therefore, to study rhythm is to study the underpinnings of all of music. In this thesis, we explore basic rhythmic preferences in traditional music and, using this as a point of reference, methods are implemented to generate similar types of rhythms. Finally, a software platform …

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Cooperative Jamming In Wireless Networks - Turning Attacks Into Privacy Protection, Jingqi Wu Dec 2008

Cooperative Jamming In Wireless Networks - Turning Attacks Into Privacy Protection, Jingqi Wu

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Generally, collisions between packets are undesired in wireless networks. We design this scheme, Cooperative Jamming in Wireless Networks (CJWN), to make use of collision to protect secret DATA packets from being sniffed by a nearby eavesdropper. We are intending to greatly increase the Packet Error Rate (PER) at the eavesdropper when the PER at the receiver is maintained at an acceptable level. This scheme is not intended to completely take the place of various encryption/decryption schemes which are working based on successfully received packets. Adding CJWN to the popular CSMA/CA adopted in IEEE 802.11 will add more security even the …

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Salinity Transport In A Finite-Volume Sigma-Layer Three-Dimensional Model, Angel Gabriel Retana Dec 2008

Salinity Transport In A Finite-Volume Sigma-Layer Three-Dimensional Model, Angel Gabriel Retana

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this study was to develop a 3-D model for The Pontchartrain Estuary that was capable of long-term mass conservative simulation of salinities. This was accomplished in a multi-stage approach involving: a physical model of salinity exchange through a pass; a 3-D FVCOM model of the physical experiment; the development and testing of an FVCOM model for an idealized Pontchartrain Basin; and for the entire estuary. The data from the physical model tests were used to validate the performance of the FVCOM model with density-driven flows. These results showed that hydrostatic FVCOM captured the primary internal wave movement. …

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Opposing Viewpoints For Addressing Public Housing In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Harry Richard Yelton Iii Dec 2008

Opposing Viewpoints For Addressing Public Housing In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Harry Richard Yelton Iii

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The decision to close and never reopen four public housing projects in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina was a highly contentious issue for people throughout the city and even the nation. This thesis investigates the tensions between those who supported and opposed public housing demolition by highlighting the work and history of two people on either side of the debate, Richard Baron and Bill Quigley. This study of contemporary housing policy draws on the history of public housing in America, and refers to Stacy Seicshnaydre.s assertion that public housing policy has been a consistent struggle between "Taking the Housing Now" …

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The Alluring And Manipulative "Spider Women" Of The Silver Screen: Femmes Fatales Of The Hard-Boiled Fiction, Classic Noir And Contemporary Noir Periods, Gretchen Brinker Dec 2008

The Alluring And Manipulative "Spider Women" Of The Silver Screen: Femmes Fatales Of The Hard-Boiled Fiction, Classic Noir And Contemporary Noir Periods, Gretchen Brinker

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis delves into three categories of femmes fatales: the ones of hard-boiled fiction/classic noir and contemporary noir. Moreover, it generates several comparisons among those aforementioned categories, and extrapolates on them. Third wave feminism and how it draws relevance/is significant to the Bound and The Last Seduction films is additionally explored in this thesis. This thesis will discuss the similarities of the femmes fatales of the '30s/1940s-50s and contemporary noir (1980s-90s), while delving into differences between them.

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Preparation, Characterization, And Application Of Liposomes In The Study Of Lipid Oxidation Targeting Hydroxyl Radicals, Chanel Fortier Dec 2008

Preparation, Characterization, And Application Of Liposomes In The Study Of Lipid Oxidation Targeting Hydroxyl Radicals, Chanel Fortier

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In the onset of many chronic illnesses including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and cardiovascular diseases, there is evidence to support the delicate balance between prooxidant and antioxidant species is shifted in favor of the former. Under these conditions, many reactive oxygen species (ROS) including hydroxyl radicals, are generated. Hydroxyl radicals formed in close proximity to DNA, nucleotides, proteins, and lipids rapidly oxidize these biological molecules in a nonspecific way. However, their toxicity is limited by their short lifetimes. Currently, the mechanism by which hydroxyl radicals are involved in the onset of many illnesses, particularly with regard to lipid peroxidation, has yielded some …

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Application Of X-Ray Diffraction Methods And Molecular Mechanics Simulations To Structure Determination And Cotton Fiber Analysis, Zakhia Moore Dec 2008

Application Of X-Ray Diffraction Methods And Molecular Mechanics Simulations To Structure Determination And Cotton Fiber Analysis, Zakhia Moore

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The results of three very different studies are presented. X-ray diffraction has been utilized for single-crystal structure determinations, fiber diffraction analyses, and in conjunction with molecular modeling of Cellulose IIII. Although each technique is different in its sampling, data acquisition, data treatment, and identification, the common denominator has been the use of x-rays. The single-crystal structure determination of ethylene glycol bis(tropane-3-carboxylate) is presented as an example of the use of modern single-crystal x-ray instrumentation including the use of coupled charged devices (CCDs) as detectors for accurate data collection and rapid elucidation of crystal structures. The structure determination of Cellulose IIII …

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Casa Samba: Twenty-One Years Of Amerizilian Identity In New Orleans1, Lauren E. Lastrapes Dec 2008

Casa Samba: Twenty-One Years Of Amerizilian Identity In New Orleans1, Lauren E. Lastrapes

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Samba drumming and dance traditions work in New Orleans in ways that they do not elsewhere. Casa Samba, a drumming and dance troupe in the tradition of the Brazilian escolas de samba, shows how it works. Integral to this analysis of Casa Samba are the ways in which the group's identity and the identities of its individual members are processual, mutable, and "unfinished, always being remade" (Gilroy 1993:xi). This thesis examines how Casa Samba has situated itself in the New Orleans music scene. This work seeks, through ethnographic interviews with long term members, to identify what makes Casa Samba attractive …

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Responses Of A Louisiana Oligohaline Marsh Plant Community To Nutrient Loading And Disturbance, Danielle Meert Dec 2008

Responses Of A Louisiana Oligohaline Marsh Plant Community To Nutrient Loading And Disturbance, Danielle Meert

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Aboveground plant community dynamics in the oligohaline marsh at Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana, USA, were assessed in response to nutrient loading (3 N x 3 P treatments) and disturbance (both planned lethal disturbance and stochastic tropical storm/hurricane disturbance). Sampling was conducted seasonally from April 2004 to September 2006. Spartina patens and Schoenoplectus americanus are co-dominant plant species in this marsh. Low N-loading additions resulted in increased S. patens cover. However, increased N loading did not result in a shift in plant community composition despite S. americanus consistently having higher leaf tissue N than S. patens. Our results …

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Essays In Corporate Governance: Issues And Evidence From Equity Carve-Outs, Andrew Mulindwa Kayanga Dec 2008

Essays In Corporate Governance: Issues And Evidence From Equity Carve-Outs, Andrew Mulindwa Kayanga

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays examining the relation between corporate governance and firm performance. The theme of this study is that the widely documented long-term underperformance in equity carve-outs can be partly explained by weak corporate governance. The first essay presented in Chapter 2 explores the effect of shareholder-rights protection on the performance of a sample of firms that initiated a carve-out during the period 1983-2004. Using the Gompers, Ishii, and Metrick (2003) index and Bebchuk, Cohen, and Ferrell (2004) entrenchment index, as proxies for the quality of shareholder-rights protection, I provide evidence that firms with better shareholder rights …

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