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2009

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Spirituality As A Validating Factor And Intrinsic Motivator To Persistence: A Study Of Nontraditional Female Students In Community/Technical Colleges, Camille Laperouse Jarrell Dec 2009

Spirituality As A Validating Factor And Intrinsic Motivator To Persistence: A Study Of Nontraditional Female Students In Community/Technical Colleges, Camille Laperouse Jarrell

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

While traditional theories are useful in the study of persistence in some nontraditional students, many nontraditional female students are at high risk of not successfully persisting towards their educational goals. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions and experiences of spirituality, as a validating factor and an intrinsic motivator to persist, in nontraditional female students in community and technical colleges. A hermeneutic phenomenology research design was used with the "lived experiences" of these women articulated through their own voices. Although the study did not have a rigid set of fixed procedures, van Manens (1990) suggested activities for …

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Experiences Of Black Women Who Persist To Graduation At Predominantly White Schools Of Nursing, Francine Simms Thomas Dec 2009

Experiences Of Black Women Who Persist To Graduation At Predominantly White Schools Of Nursing, Francine Simms Thomas

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This study was designed to explore the experiences of Black women who attended predominantly White nursing schools. A phenomenological design was used to investigate eight nurses who persisted through to graduation from their nursing programs in the 21st century. The study examined persistence through the lens of academic involvement, alienation, loneliness and isolation, culture, identity and fit, self-concept, and institutional climate and racism. In-depth interviews were conducted to answer the following questions: (1) What does it mean to be Black in a PWI? What are Black nurses' perceptions of the nursing school experience, (2) How did the Black culture fit …

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Lucky Ones, Daniel Goodman Dec 2009

Lucky Ones, Daniel Goodman

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

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Empire Of Dirt, Tawni Auxier Dec 2009

Empire Of Dirt, Tawni Auxier

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

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Meat Man And Bear Boy Fairy Tales For Today, Eva Langston Dec 2009

Meat Man And Bear Boy Fairy Tales For Today, Eva Langston

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

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Monitoring And Inverse Dispersion Modeling To Quantify Vocs From Msw Landfill, Sarit Kumar Das Dec 2009

Monitoring And Inverse Dispersion Modeling To Quantify Vocs From Msw Landfill, Sarit Kumar Das

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In USA, the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) landfills accumulate about 130 million tons of solid waste every year. A significant amount of biodegradable solid waste is converted to landfill gas due to anaerobic stabilization by bacteria. These biochemical reactions produce volatile organic compounds (VOCs) like methane and others. Due to heterogeneity in refuse composition, unpredictable distribution of favorable environmental conditions for bacterial actions and highly uncertain pathway of gases, estimation of landfill gas emission for a particular landfill is complex. However, it is important to quantify landfill gases for health risk assessment and energy recovery purposes. This research is based …

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An Ontology-Based Approach To Automatic Generation Of Gui For Data Entry, Fangfang Liu Dec 2009

An Ontology-Based Approach To Automatic Generation Of Gui For Data Entry, Fangfang Liu

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reports an ontology-based approach to automatic generation of highly tailored GUI components that can make customized data requests for the end users. Using this GUI generator, without knowing any programming skill a domain expert can browse the data schema through the ontology file of his/her own field, choose attribute fields according to business's needs, and make a highly customized GUI for end users' data requests input. The interface for the domain expert is a tree view structure that shows not only the domain taxonomy categories but also the relationships between classes. By clicking the checkbox associated with each …

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Automation Of The Client Side Of Web Services Using Php, Menad Medjkane Dec 2009

Automation Of The Client Side Of Web Services Using Php, Menad Medjkane

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Web Services have been the dominant technology in business integration and implementation of service oriented architectures. PHP is a server-side language popular for development of applications. A significant advantage of PHP is its light weight development for feature-rich web applications. Typically, PHP is used for making good-looking front end user interfaces; Java or other programming languages are used to develop the back end application. A secure and robust way for PHP programs to call back-end services is by Web Services. However, when the Web Service operations have complex interfaces, writing PHP client code can be difficult and error-prone. This thesis …

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Fast Algorithm For Modeling Of Rain Events In Weather Radar Imagery, Anirudh Paduru Dec 2009

Fast Algorithm For Modeling Of Rain Events In Weather Radar Imagery, Anirudh Paduru

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Weather radar imagery is important for several remote sensing applications including tracking of storm fronts and radar echo classification. In particular, tracking of precipitation events is useful for both forecasting and classification of rain/non-rain events since non-rain events usually appear to be static compared to rain events. Recent weather radar imaging-based forecasting approaches [3] consider that precipitation events can be modeled as a combination of localized functions using Radial Basis Function Neural Networks (RBFNNs). Tracking of rain events can be performed by tracking the parameters of these localized functions. The RBFNN-based techniques used in forecasting are not only computationally expensive, …

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Meta State Generalized Hidden Markov Model For Eukaryotic Gene Structure Identification, Carl Baribault Dec 2009

Meta State Generalized Hidden Markov Model For Eukaryotic Gene Structure Identification, Carl Baribault

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Using a generalized-clique hidden Markov model (HMM) as the starting point for a eukaryotic gene finder, the objective here is to strengthen the signal information at the transitions between coding and non-coding (c/nc) regions. This is done by enlarging the primitive hidden states associated with individual base labeling (as exon, intron, or junk) to substrings of primitive hidden states or footprint states. Moreover, the allowed footprint transitions are restricted to those that include either one c/nc transition or none at all. (This effectively imposes a minimum length on exons and the other regions.) These footprint states allow the c/nc transitions …

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Synthesis Of Amphibian Alkaloids And Synthesis And Affinity Of Novel Cannabinoid Receptor Ligands, April R. Noble Dec 2009

Synthesis Of Amphibian Alkaloids And Synthesis And Affinity Of Novel Cannabinoid Receptor Ligands, April R. Noble

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Amphibian alkaloids are attractive targets for synthesis due to their biological activity. An important class of amphibian alkaloids is the 2,5-disubstituted pyrrolidine-based family of compounds. There are many synthetic approaches for the preparation of the trans-2,5- disubstituted pyrrolidines, but methods for the construction of the cis-2,5-pyrrolidines are limited. Therefore, it was desired to develop an enantioselective approach for the preparation of cis-2,5-disubsituted pyrrolidines. (+)-Tropin-2-one derived from cocaine was used as starting material to exploit the inherent stereochemistry for construction of the cis-pyrrolidine ring. This permitted the unequivocal assignment of the absolute configuration of the target pyrrolidine. The structurally simple pyrrolidine …

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Design And Synthesis Of Cb1 Receptor Ligands And Synthesis Of Amphibian Alkaloids, Hong Shu Dec 2009

Design And Synthesis Of Cb1 Receptor Ligands And Synthesis Of Amphibian Alkaloids, Hong Shu

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Our project was aimed at the development of novel CB1 cannabinoid receptor antagonists that may have clinical applications for the treatment of cannabinoid and psychostimulant addiction. In this study, we designed, synthesized, and established the CB1 affinity for the 1,5-diaryl-1,2,3- triazole esters, a series of 4,5-diaryl-1-substituted-1,2,3-triazole analogues and a series of 4,5- diaryl-2-substituted-1,2,3-triazoles. Our research group has been interested in the synthesis of amphibian alkaloids due to their interesting biological activities. We have recently developed a general synthetic strategy which can rapidly prepare a few amphibian alkaloids simply from the abundant natural product (-)- cocaine This strategy was first successfully …

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Efficiency Of Internal Capital Allocation And The Success Of Acquisitions, Meng Ye Dec 2009

Efficiency Of Internal Capital Allocation And The Success Of Acquisitions, Meng Ye

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Does efficient internal investment generally translate into successful external investment activities? In this research we use the internal capital allocation efficiency as a proxy for the efficiency of internal investment, and study whether firms that are internally efficient also make efficient external investment decisions. Our sample consists of multi-segment acquirers that announce acquisitions between 1986 and 2003 (only completed deals are included). We estimate short-term and long-term abnormal performance, excess value and operating performance around mergers in order to measure the success of acquisitions (external investment decisions). Our results indicate that internal capital allocation efficiency is indeed a significant factor …

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Enhancement Of The Properties Of Polymer By Using Carbon Nanotubes, Wai-Yin Tam Dec 2009

Enhancement Of The Properties Of Polymer By Using Carbon Nanotubes, Wai-Yin Tam

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The outstanding properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have stimulated a large number of researches to explore the potential of using them as reinforcement in polymer composites. Although many studies have reported the enlighten improvement of the materials properties by using CNTs as reinforcement, there are no promising and optimal results have been concluded to date. This thesis aims at studying the mechanical properties on thermoset polymer, Epoxy, by employing a small amount of carbon nanotubes as reinforcement. Two different types of nanotube-based composites are prepared i.e. a raw single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) composites and a functionalized single-walled carbon nanotube (FSWNT) …

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On Corporate Hedging And Firm Focus And On Bank Board Structure, Bei Zeng Dec 2009

On Corporate Hedging And Firm Focus And On Bank Board Structure, Bei Zeng

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of two essays: one looks at the relation between firm focus and hedging in the REIT industry, and the other compares bank board structures in China and the US. The first essay presented in Chapter 2 examines the relation between corporate hedging and firm focus in the REIT industry by using a sample of REITs in 2005 and in 2007. We find 46.41% utilization rate in 2005 and 43.41% in 2007. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that, relative to diversified firms, focused firms are more likely to engage in hedging. Focused firms also tend to be …

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Augustine And Other Stories, Amanda Pederson Dec 2009

Augustine And Other Stories, Amanda Pederson

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

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Henry Louis Rey, Spiritualism, And Creoles Of Color In Nineteenth-Century New Orleans, Melissa Daggett Dec 2009

Henry Louis Rey, Spiritualism, And Creoles Of Color In Nineteenth-Century New Orleans, Melissa Daggett

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a biography of Henry Louis Rey (1831-1894), a member of one of New Orleans' most prominent Creole of Color families. During the Civil War, Rey was a captain in both the Confederate and Union Native Guards. In postbellum years, he served as a member of the Louisiana House of Representative and in appointed city offices. Rey became heavily involved with spiritualism in the 1850s and established séance circles in New Orleans during the early 1870s. The voluminous transcripts of these séance circles have survived into the twenty-first century; however, scholarly use of these sources has been limited …

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Lei Feng: China's Evolving Cultural Icon, 1960s To The Present, Clement A. Dugue Iii Dec 2009

Lei Feng: China's Evolving Cultural Icon, 1960s To The Present, Clement A. Dugue Iii

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In 1962, very few people within the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) had ever heard of Lei Feng, a young soldier who died in a tragic accident while driving a truck for the People's Liberation Army. The following year, his name was known throughout China as one of the finest young soldiers that the country had ever produced. In years to come, his diary was put in the hands of everyone from school children to soldiers to serve as a model for the ideal Chinese citizen. Furthermore, as Chinese culture evolved, so did the Lei Feng image, changing from citizen-soldier …

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Carved, Amberly Fox Dec 2009

Carved, Amberly Fox

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The poems in Carved take the reader on a journey of self-discovery and explore the inequalities of human relationships: between being silent and the discovery of one's voice. The collection also addresses humanity's destructive imprint and the resiliency of nature in reclaiming what humanity sought to exploit and conquer. The poems expose the ironies in how we imagine things to be, compared to their reality. Some of the poems also draw parallels between the process of going underground and that of being reborn, as well as the spiritual experience of caving.

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Deconstructing Elevated Expressways: An Evaluation Of The Proposal To Remove The Interstate 10 Claiborne Avenue Expressway In New Orleans, Louisiana, Kim Tucker Henry Dec 2009

Deconstructing Elevated Expressways: An Evaluation Of The Proposal To Remove The Interstate 10 Claiborne Avenue Expressway In New Orleans, Louisiana, Kim Tucker Henry

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

With the passage of the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, the interstate system included an elevated segment of Interstate 10 constructed over Claiborne Avenue in New Orleans, Louisiana. The I-10 Claiborne Expressway provided access to downtown by destroying a tree-lined boulevard and contributing to the decline of an African American neighborhood. In 2005, after hurricane Katrina, several community-based plans proposed that the elevated I-10 Claiborne Expressway be removed. This thesis compares the removal proposals to the decision making processes of five case cities that have removed expressways. Necessary conditions were applied to all expressway removal cases. Currently, the I-10 …

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Advanced Techniques For Improving The Efficacy Of Digital Forensics Investigations, Lodovico Marziale Dec 2009

Advanced Techniques For Improving The Efficacy Of Digital Forensics Investigations, Lodovico Marziale

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Digital forensics is the science concerned with discovering, preserving, and analyzing evidence on digital devices. The intent is to be able to determine what events have taken place, when they occurred, who performed them, and how they were performed. In order for an investigation to be effective, it must exhibit several characteristics. The results produced must be reliable, or else the theory of events based on the results will be flawed. The investigation must be comprehensive, meaning that it must analyze all targets which may contain evidence of forensic interest. Since any investigation must be performed within the constraints of …

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Study Of Magnetization Switching For Mram Based Memory Technologies, Huy Pham Dec 2009

Study Of Magnetization Switching For Mram Based Memory Technologies, Huy Pham

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Understanding magnetization reversal is very important in designing high density and high data transfer rate recording media. This research has been motivated by interest in developing new nonvolatile data storage solutions as magnetic random access memories - MRAMs. This dissertation is intended to provide a theoretical analysis of static and dynamic magnetization switching of magnetic systems within the framework of critical curve (CC). Based on the time scale involved, a quasi-static or dynamic CC approach is used. The static magnetization switching can be elegantly described using the concept of critical curves. The critical curves of simple uncoupled films used in …

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What We Thought We Knew Poems, 2007-2009, Katherine Durham Oldmixon Dec 2009

What We Thought We Knew Poems, 2007-2009, Katherine Durham Oldmixon

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

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Reproductive Freedom In The United States And Louisiana: An Assessment Of The Last Decade, A Review Of The Current Climate, And A Scenario For The Future, Amy Granger Dec 2009

Reproductive Freedom In The United States And Louisiana: An Assessment Of The Last Decade, A Review Of The Current Climate, And A Scenario For The Future, Amy Granger

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Government began legislating abortion in the mid nineteenth century and has controlled access to this service for women ever since. With the creation of hospital boards after WWII, state control over access became further entrenched. Regulations and restrictions since Roe v. Wade limit the availability of abortion services for women served by Medicaid and other social assistance programs. The existence of a class bias around access can be seen throughout the topic's history and legislation has unfairly targeted and therefore disproportionately affects poor women. The data show that these restrictions have no impact on the number of unintended pregnancies over …

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Examination Of Faculty Expectations Of Technical College Administrators As An Important Factor In High Performing Environments, Phyllis A. Dupuis Dec 2009

Examination Of Faculty Expectations Of Technical College Administrators As An Important Factor In High Performing Environments, Phyllis A. Dupuis

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Popular thought supports the notion that faculty expectations of technical college administrators appear to be linked to the success or failure of an institution at accomplishing its mission. These expectations provide the basis for the development of relationships that foster the growth of technical training and thus the growth of a skilled workforce. Faculty members in technical colleges are responsible for training individuals to meet business and industry needs. Administrators are responsible for efficiently achieving the institution's mission of workforce development. Unknown faculty expectations may inhibit the ability of administrators to achieve the institution's mission in an efficient manner. This …

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Reliable Multicast In Mobile Ad Hoc Wireless Networks, Lawrence Klos Dec 2009

Reliable Multicast In Mobile Ad Hoc Wireless Networks, Lawrence Klos

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A mobile wireless ad hoc network (MANET) consists of a group of mobile nodes communicating wirelessly with no fixed infrastructure. Each node acts as source or receiver, and all play a role in path discovery and packet routing. MANETs are growing in popularity due to multiple usage models, ease of deployment and recent advances in hardware with which to implement them. MANETs are a natural environment for multicasting, or group communication, where one source transmits data packets through the network to multiple receivers. Proposed applications for MANET group communication ranges from personal network apps, impromptu small scale business meetings and …

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Hope Vi: A Racial Project For A Colorblind Society, Erin Patton Dec 2009

Hope Vi: A Racial Project For A Colorblind Society, Erin Patton

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Being a low-income person of color trying to survive in a society that subscribes to a colorblind ideology can be more than difficult, it can be impossible. This thesis seeks to examine the racial implications of the racial project of HOPE VI. To demonstrate that impact, I perform a Critical Discourse Analysis on the "The Final Report of the National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing: A Report to the Congress and the Secretary of housing and Urban Development" and the United States Housing Act of 1937 as it was amended by the "Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of …

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Perceptions And Concerns Of Novice Secondary Teachers In Louisiana: The Relationship Of Novice Secondary Teacher Stress To Their Perception Of Principal Leadership, Victoria Sanderlin Hand Dec 2009

Perceptions And Concerns Of Novice Secondary Teachers In Louisiana: The Relationship Of Novice Secondary Teacher Stress To Their Perception Of Principal Leadership, Victoria Sanderlin Hand

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The demand for highly qualified teachers is well documented, yet numerous stressors influence educators to leave their positions. The guiding question for this study was: Is there a relationship between perceived principal leadership behavior and the stress experienced by the novice secondary teacher? The target population was novice teachers in Louisiana. The purposive sample was delimited to novice secondary teachers having six semesters of teaching experience or less in grades 6 through 12. The ten largest parishes in Louisiana were selected to sample. Four of the ten parishes granted permission to survey novice secondary teachers. The Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire, …

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Tattoos As Personal Narrative, Michelle Alcina Dec 2009

Tattoos As Personal Narrative, Michelle Alcina

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the history of tattoos in the United States along with the role and significance of tattos today. The study's primary research question seeks to discover whether tattoos anchor an individual's personal narrative and help to solidify an individual's sense of self. The study considers both modernist and postmodernist concepts of identity, but ultimately supports a perspective which argues that identity is the result of an individual's ability to keep a consistent narrative going over time. This exploratory study uses a qualitatative approach to discern the meanings behind individuals' tattoos through their own words and conceptions. Eight individuals …

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Defining The Role Of Syndecan-4 In Mechanotransduction Using Surfacemodification Approaches, Robert M. Bellin, James D. Kubicek, Matthew J. Frigault, Andrew J. Kamien, Robert L. Steward, Hillary M. Barnes, Michael B. Digiacomo, Luke J. Duncan, Christina K. Edgerly, Elizabeth M. Morse, Chan Young Park, Jeffrey J. Fredberg, Chao Min Cheng, Philip R. Leduc Dec 2009

Defining The Role Of Syndecan-4 In Mechanotransduction Using Surfacemodification Approaches, Robert M. Bellin, James D. Kubicek, Matthew J. Frigault, Andrew J. Kamien, Robert L. Steward, Hillary M. Barnes, Michael B. Digiacomo, Luke J. Duncan, Christina K. Edgerly, Elizabeth M. Morse, Chan Young Park, Jeffrey J. Fredberg, Chao Min Cheng, Philip R. Leduc

Biology Department Faculty Scholarship

The ability of cells to respond to external mechanical stimulation is a complex and robust process involving a diversity of molecular interactions. Although mechanotransduction has been heavily studied, many questions remain regarding the link between physical stimulation and biochemical response. Of significant interest has been the contribution of the transmembrane proteins involved, and integrins in particular, because of their connectivity to both the extracellular matrix and the cytoskeleton. Here, we demonstrate the existence of a mechanically based initiation molecule, syndecan-4. We first demonstrate the ability of syndecan-4 molecules to support cell attachment and spreading without the direct extracellular binding of …

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