Digital Commons Network^™

Of Camels And “Ca-Mail”: Engaging Complex Representations Of Bedouins In Activism, Emily Mckee

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

While conducting fieldwork with environmental justice activists in the Negev region of Israel, I faced a troubling dilemma regarding representations: Having observed strategic essentialism in activist publicity, how should I uphold both scholarly and socio-political responsibilities? In this article, I suggest that observations of strategic essentialism can help us unmask the power dynamics that shape the rules of public discussion in a society. Taking the example of romantic portrayals of Bedouins as indigenous farmers, I use this image as a springboard in my writing to consider why this essentialization holds rhetorical power in Israel. What does it say about the …

Ancestral Determination From Foramen Magnum, Stephanie Marie Crider

LSU Master's Theses

Ancestry estimation is a crucial part of the biological profile creation in forensic anthropology. Without proper classification of ancestry, other aspects of the biological profile, such as stature, can be affected. Several techniques are used by forensic anthropologists to determine ancestry of unidentified remains. Some anthropologists believe the cranium to be an excellent indicator of ancestry (Rhine 1990). The focus of this research was to determine the utility of the foramen magnum region on the cranial base as a positive indicator of ancestry. Previous studies have explored the effectiveness of using the cranial base’s occipital condyles for ancestry assignment of …

Institutional Design And The Economy: Disentangling The Effects Of Judicial Independence And Judicial Review On Economic Development, Kaitlyn Louise Sill

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Scholars, politicians, and economic leaders widely believe that an independent, efficient judiciary facilitates economic growth. However, relatively few empirical studies have been conducted to evaluate the relationship between the judiciary and the economy. As a result, we have a limited and an ambiguous understanding of the effect of courts. In this dissertation, I provide insight into the relationship between the judiciary and economic growth by disentangling judicial independence and judicial review and evaluating their effects using a large-n, comparative research design. I empirically demonstrate that judicial independence and judicial review are conceptually distinct and have independent and varying effects on …

Similarities And Differences In Self-Disclosure And Friendship Development Between Fact-To-Face Communication And Facebook, Pavica Sheldon

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This research identified the patterns of self-disclosure between face-to-face and Facebook friends’ interactions. A survey of 317 participants was conducted to compare the hypothesized relationships among social attraction, self-disclosure, predictability and trust in three types of relationships: recently added Facebook friend, exclusive Facebook friend, and an exclusive face-to-face friend. Data was analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM), multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), t-tests and correlations. Results indicated that individuals reporting high levels of social attraction also reported having greater self-disclosure with their latest added Facebook friend, exclusive Facebook friend and an exclusive face-to-face friend. This supports a theorem of Uncertainty …

Promoting Distributional Equality For Women: Some Thoughts On Gender And Global Corporate Citizenship In Foreign Direct Investment, Rachel J. Anderson

Scholarly Works

This essay applies a legal theory of global corporate citizenship to the question of women’s distributional equality in foreign direct investment. It proposes ways that a legal theory of mandatory global corporate citizenship can expand the ways we think about regulating transnational corporations and promoting gender equality.

Head Shaping Of The Ancient Maya At Wild Cane Cay And Moho Cay, Belize, Kellye Alyse French

LSU Master's Theses

As a sign of beauty or status, the ancient Maya shaped the skulls of their infants, resulting in what modern researchers see as several forms of cranial modification. My project consists of the study of cranial modification of the coastal Maya from two trading ports, including an Early Classic (A.D. 300-600) sample Moho Cay, Belize, and a Postclassic (A.D. 900-1300) sample from Wild Cane Cay, Belize. Using the classification set forth by Dembo and Imbelloni, I calculate the type of cranial modification found at each site. I then create gender, temporal, and spatial distributions and compare the results to other …

In Sickness And In Health: Experiencing Medical Spaces In Mbarara (Uganda), Kara E. Miller

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis is a contribution to cross-cultural studies on health and medicine explored through the material and symbolic facets of health care in a region of Southwest Uganda. Research conducted in the healing spaces of Mbarara reflects traditions in the anthropology of the body and brings a lived perspective to conditions of sickness and wellness. By tracing the biographies of treatment spaces, the medical landscape is evaluated in terms of participants’ perceptions, convictions, and knowledge sets. Phenomenological methodology is employed in this exploration of ill states and curative places, which braids concepts and academic work in the areas of medicine, …

Identifying Historic Storm Surges And Calculating Storm Surge Return Periods For The Gulf Of Mexico Coast, Hal Needham

LSU Master's Theses

Tropical cyclone-generated storm surges inflict natural disasters that are among the most catastrophic globally. The surges observed along the U.S. Gulf of Mexico are among the highest in the world, second only to the Bay of Bengal. Storm surge activity along the U.S. Gulf Coast remains poorly understood, however, in part, due to the absence of credible research that accurately depicts the maximum height and location of historic surge events. This research addresses this gap in the scientific literature by creating a database of storm surge observations along the Gulf Coast between the years 1880 to 2009. A total of …

"Teach Us Incessantly": Lessons And Learning In The Antebellum Gulf South, Sarah L. Hyde

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Before 1860 people in the Gulf South valued education and sought to extend schooling to residents across the region. Southerners learned in a variety of different settings – within their own homes taught by a family member or hired tutor, at private or parochial schools as well as in public free schools. Regardless of the venue, the ubiquity of learning in the region reveals the importance of education in Southern culture. In the 1820s and 1830s, legislators in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama sought to increase access to education by offering financial assistance to private schools in order to offset tuition …

Where Cultures And Sovereigns Collide: Balancing Federalism, Tribal Self-Determination, And Individual Rights In The Adoption Of Indian Children By Gays And Lesbians, Steve Sanders

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article analyzes the complex interplay between adoption (traditionally a matter reserved to state family law) and the federal Indian Child Welfare Act in the context of adoptions by gays and lesbians.

As a federal statute that partially preempts state law for the benefit of Native Americans, ICWA implicates three sovereigns: the United States, the state where the adoption petition is brought, and the tribe whose child is the focus of the proceeding. This interplay of sovereigns in itself makes Indian child welfare law complicated and interesting. Beyond these sovereign interests, also to be considered are the interests and rights …

Understanding The Economic Factors That Impact The Financial Health Of Local Governments, John David Barreca

LSU Master's Theses

The state of Louisiana has been hit by several severe hurricanes in recent years, and these disaster events have placed a financial burden on parish budgets. As such, local governments have been compelled to bear various cleanup and recovery costs in the short and long term. Therefore, this research sought to evaluate the factors that drive the variation in the financial health of local governments in Louisiana. This research made two contributions. The first contribution sought to develop a comprehensive measure of economic activity at the county level, and the second contribution used econometric methods to estimate the effect of …

Sonata No.1 For Violin And Piano, Op. 80,By Sergei Prokofiev: A Guide To Interpretation, Boris Blagoev

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Sergei Prokofiev was an extremely prolific composer whose career brought him success throughout Europe and the U. S. as well as Russia and the Soviet Union. He wrote for nearly every genre, and his most popular works today include operas, ballets, symphonies, and concertos. As a pianist, most of the concertos and sonatas that Prokofiev wrote were for the piano. However, his contributions to the violin repertoire are significant. Prokofiev wrote two concertos and two sonatas for solo violin. Of these, Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano, Op. 80 is unique for many reasons. The piece took Prokofiev eight …

Revitalizing The Suburban Dream: Disaster, Displacement And Resilience In Eastern Orleans Parish, Meredith Morgan Feike

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Hurricane Katrina tested the disaster resiliency of communities throughout the city of New Orleans. More than four years after breaches in levees led to the flooding of one hundred forty square miles of the Crescent City, some residents are still struggling to reclaim their neighborhoods one block at a time. Eastern Orleans Parish is a portion of the local landscape whose long-term sustainability remains uncertain. Rebuilding is extremely slow with only a fraction of residents returning to the area. Development in New Orleans East began after World War II as a result of urban sprawl. Many New Orleanians desired a …

Ricci V. Destefano: A Masculinities Theory Analysis, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

This Article applies masculinity theory to explore the aspects Ricci v. Destefano and its political reverberations. Empirical evidence showed that virtually all written tests have a disparate impact on minorities, that a neighboring city had reached less discriminatory results using a different weighting system, and that other fire departments used assessment centers to judge firefighters' qualifications for promotions. While the black male and all female firefighters were made invisible by the case and the testimony, the fact that Ricci's and Vargas' testimony lionized a particularly traditional form of heterosexual masculinity was also invisible. While the command presence required of a …

Dynamic Trip Distribution Models For Hurricane Evacuation, Guangxiang Cheng

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The dissertation presents several methods to estimate time-dependent origin-destination (O-D) trip tables for hurricane evacuation using survey data from hurricane Floyd in South Carolina in 1999. A static disaggregate destination choice model in multinomial logit form was developed considering household characteristics, hurricane threats, and destination socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. Models were developed for persons evacuating to friends or relatives, and hotels or motels separately. None of the household characteristics of evacuees were found to be significant in distinguishing destination choice but destination characteristics were. The model was tested by comparing the observed destination choices with predicted values via trip length …

Mapping The Digital Divide In Neighborhoods: Wi-Fi Access In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Luke Driskell

LSU Master's Theses

The communication made possible by the Internet has leveled the global playing field in some ways, but helped maintain traditional inequalities as well. The “digital divide” refers to disparities in telecommunication access and use from global to local scales. This study uses access point mapping to quantify local Internet access in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A Wi-Fi access point (router) density was obtained and compared to various demographic and socioeconomic attributes in neighborhoods. Fieldwork confirmed the expectation that traditionally disadvantaged groups would have the lowest rates of Wi-Fi ownership, but median household income was unexpectedly less related than race, education, and …

Finding The Originals: A Study Of The Roman Copies Of The Tyrannicides And The Amazon Group, Courtney Ann Rader

LSU Master's Theses

Very few bronze original Greek sculptures from the fifth-century BCE are extant today. It is through marble Roman copies that lost Greek originals are studied today. Along with the Roman copies, other media and ancient literary sources can be used to study Greek sculpture. My goal for this thesis is to study the previous scholarship and Roman copies of the Tyrannicides and the Amazon Group. When studying copies, scholars must first answer: Is it a copy? Of what is it a copy? If it is a copy, what can the copy tell about the Greek artist? To better answer these …

Writing About The South "In Her Own Way": Gender And Region In The Work Of Southern Women Playwrights, Casey Kayser

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines how identity—gender, race, sexuality, regional affiliation—intersects with considerations of the dramatic genre, commercial and critical factors in the American theatre, and understandings about the American South to complicate how contemporary southern women playwrights represent region. In light of the always-already "performative" nature of the South, and geographical, commercial, and ideological factors that set the South in opposition to the North, southern women playwrights face additional difficulties in navigating issues of authenticity and simulacra, the universal versus the specific, ideas about southern "backwardness" versus northern sophistication, and audience participation in fetishizing or distancing the South. Using drama as …

Edmund Burke And His Impact On The British Political, Social And Moral Response During The French Revolution (1790-1797), Guy Brendan Gonzalez

LSU Master's Theses

Edmund Burke’s legacy has heretofore centered on his seminal work, The Reflections on the Revolution in France. However, Burke’s other contributions have been largely ignored. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to focus on Burke’s literary and political role in the British response to the French Revolution from 1790 until his death in 1797. This study is divided into four chapters. The first chapter contains a contextual background of Burke’s moral and political philosophy. It explains why Burke responded in the manner he did to the French Revolution. The remaining three chapters, in a chronological manner, trace Burke’s influence …

Further Investigations Into The King George Island Mounds Site (16lv22), Harry Gene Brignac Jr

LSU Master's Theses

Research at the King George Island Mounds site (16LV22) consisted of shovel testing the island on which the site is located and placing test units in two recently discovered mounds in Area B on the south side of the site (Mounds F and G). The shovel test pits were placed on the western half of the island in an attempt to locate habitational features related to the earthworks on the eastern half of the island. All shovel tests done on King George Island during this investigation were negative showing no signs of occupation near the site proper. Units were placed …

Climatological Radar Delineation Of Urban Convection For Atlanta, Georgia, M.L. Bentley, Walker S. Ashley, J.A. Stallins

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

The distribution of warm season (June through August) thunderstorm activity surrounding Atlanta, Georgia from 1997 to 2006 was determined utilizing composite reflectivity data obtained from the network of National Weather Service radars. The radar data, at 2 km and 5 min spatial and temporal resolutions, allows for high resolution analyses of urban convective trends when grid averaged over a 10-year period. Maxima of medium- to high-reflectivity episodes were identified to the north of and within downtown Atlanta and immediately east of the primary urban expansion of the central business district (CBD). Additional enhanced, high-reflectivity areas are found in southern Fulton …

Glacial Deposits, Vol. 38, 2009-2010, Department Of Geography-Geology

Glacial Deposits

Newsletter of the Department of Geography-Geology

Palynological Analysis Of Tiger And Trinity Shoals, Louisiana Continental Shelf, Russell Ryan Crouch

LSU Master's Theses

Forty sediment samples taken from twenty-six vibracores collected from Holocene shoals (Tiger and Trinity) were processed for palynomorphs and analyzed to characterize the terrestrial and marine paleo-environments of southern Louisiana at the time of deposition of each shoal. Abundant and diverse pollen assemblages were recovered while marine microplankton were sparse (< 2% relative abundance). Pollen species were grouped by plants of similar environmental significances including arboreal, non-arboreal, aquatic, and shrub categories. Palynological signals were compared in detail between each core, as well as along strike and dip transects, to help determine whether or not these shoals were deposited coevally or in distinct depositional cycles. Evidence shows that Tiger and Trinity Shoals carry remarkably similar palynological profiles, indicating that sediments of these shoals areS from the same source, and that deposition extended over an interval of time such that climate change was not sufficient enough to alter the vegetation response (hence palynological signal). Pollen profiles show source sediments are predominantly from the lower Mississippi River drainage basin and exhibit species similar to those present in modern Louisiana coastal marshes and swamps (i.e., Taxodium distichum, Cyperaceae, Graminae, Chenopodiaceae, and Asteraceae), and coastal to upland hardwood forests of the Mississippi River alluvial valley (i.e., Pinus, Quercus, Carya, and Liquidambar styraciflua).

Designing Irishness: Ethnicity, Heritage, And Imagined Connection To Place Through Language, Thomas James Sullivan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In North America, those who are descended from "old world" immigrant groups—for example Germans, Greeks, Italians, Poles, and Irish—are thought to be assimilated or acculturated into the mainstream American culture. Since the late 1970s, however, sociologists have observed how a number of white ethnics, particularly those descended from third- and fourth-generation (and beyond) immigrants, continue to maintain a link to an ethnic group. This phenomenon—labeled symbolic or optional ethnicity—is now seen as a latter-stage development in the larger process of assimilation and ethnic-group identification. In this dissertation I show how the meaning of Irish identity has evolved in North America …

Factor That Influence The Critical Thinking Skills Of Public School Teachers In A Parish In Southwest Louisiana, Dale Beglis Schanz

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to determine the influence of selected personal and professional demographic characteristics on the critical thinking abilities of teachers in a parish in Southwest Louisiana. The study is a correlational design using a descriptive survey technique with questions for the data collection. The examiner looked at attribute independent variables – characteristics that a subject has before a study begins such as gender, age, race, highest level of education completed, and years of teaching experience. Three hundred and twenty-four teachers in twelve public schools (three high schools, four middle schools, and five elementary schools) participated in …

Three Essays On The Role Of Amenities As An Economic Development Strategy, Junpyo Hong

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

It is well known that an amenity is a key driving engine to regional economic growth. However, the site-specific nature of an amenity can characterize them as public goods. Due to this characteristic, local governments have difficulty optimally supplying amenities. This dissertation tries to find relationships between an amenity and economic growth. Three empirical papers comprise the original research in this dissertation. The findings of the meta-analysis in the first essay suggest little methodological diversity exists among researchers linking amenities to economic growth., I do find that employment growth is more likely related to man-made amenities even in research on …

The Influence Of Computer User Knowledge And Selected Demographic Characteristics The Academic Achievement Of High School Seniors, Michael E. Brown

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to identify the influence of computer user knowledge as measured by the Computer User Knowledge Survey (CUKS), and the personal demographic characteristics of Gender, Age, and Race on academic achievement as measured by the Graduation Exit Examination-21 (GEE-21), among high school seniors in public schools in a parish in South Louisiana. The CUKS and the Gender and Race data were collected from the self-perceived CUKS survey administered to 295 seniors registered in English IV classes at a school in South Louisiana. The academic achievement data and the ages of the student subjects were …

Dry Event Trends And Frequencies In The South Central United States, Michael Roberts

LSU Master's Theses

In this study, dry spells in the southern United States are analyzed. Dry spells are defined as consecutive days with no recorded rainfall. Seventy (70) weather stations are researched in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Daily precipitation for each station identifies potential trends in consecutive dry days. Stations were selected for their completeness, longevity, and their proximity to one another. Only stations with five percent or less missing data were allowed. All 70 stations will be analyzed from 1950-2008. Twenty-four stations possess over 100 years of data and will be analyzed. The best geographical indicator for consecutive dry …

Status Of Wintering Grassland Birds In A Post-Hurricane, Salvage-Logged Forest, Matthew Edward Brooks

LSU Master's Theses

North American grassland birds have been declining at an alarming rate. Winter habitat for grassland species in the southeastern U.S. generally occurs within forests subject to management. I studied wintering grassland bird communities in De Soto National Forest in southern Mississippi. My objectives were to: 1) Assess bird communities and vegetation structure in upland forest stands that were salvage-logged following Hurricane Katrina, in stands managed for Red-cockaded Woodpeckers (Picoides borealis, RCW), and in stands containing bogs; and 2) Determine the extent of the association between vegetation and occurrence of the common wintering grassland birds. I conducted bird and vegetation surveys …

Identifying And Quantifying Factors Affecting Traffic Crash Severity In Louisiana, Hong Zhang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study was conducted to identify and quantify the factors affecting highway crash severity in Louisiana. Three candidate models were fit to the crash data to compare their performance and the Ordered Mixed Logit (OML) model was selected as the crash severity prediction model of choice. The factors contributing to crash severity identified by the OML model are: age and gender of the driver, vehicle speed, whether alcohol played a role in the crash, whether seatbelts were used, whether the driver was ejected from the vehicle, whether the crash was a head-on collision, whether an airbag was deployed, and whether …