Digital Commons Network^™

The Domestic Church And The Post-Nuclear Family: A Theological Analysis And Critique, Corey Harris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an attempt to reconcile the Roman Catholic theological understanding that the Christian family is a domestic church (ecclesia domestica) with a realistic demographic and sociological portrait of the American family while remaining faithful to Catholic moral teaching. The first chapter analyzes several works of the Magisterium from the time of Vatican II that have specifically referenced the domestic church. These documents collectively show that the domestic church is a sacramental and ecclesial reality although the theology is commonly espoused under the subheading of marriage and referencing a specifically nuclear form of family. The following chapter analyzes the …

The Influence Of Selected Demographic Characteristics On The Reading Ability Of Fourth Grade Students In Louisiana, Johnny W. Morgan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the influence of selected demographic characteristics on the reading ability of fourth grade students in Louisiana. The dependent variable for this study was reading ability of fourth grade students. Independent variables were demographic characteristics as measured by reading achievement (overall reading score and subscale reading score on the LEAP assessment). The Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP) exam is a high-stakes test that is administered to fourth grade students in Louisiana. Students must pass specific portions of the test to be promoted to fifth grade. Academic achievement data on the LEAP test …

Three States Of The Mind's Eye, Lindsay Huddleston

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Three States of the Mind's Eye is a multimedia work composed of music, poetry, and video. The purpose of the work is to examine attributes of three different abstract states of mind: the dream, paranoia, and courage. The musical score both tells its own story as well as enhances the visuals and poetry as they are presented. This document will discuss the ideas behind the work, how the composer went about creating each section and combining them, and will provide musical excerpts, the poetry itself and other visual examples. All sounds for the project are synthetic or sampled and the …

The Lived Experience Of Mental Health Workers In A Residential Treatment Facility Who Work With Multiply Traumatized Children And Self-Identify As Experiencing Vicarious Trauma And Compassion Satisfaction, Debra Hyatt-Burkhart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Examination of the work of providing trauma-focused treatment has been, heretofore, accomplished primarily through a lens of pathology. It cannot be ignored that many professionals who work with traumatized individuals suffer negative effects. What has been discounted is the experience of individuals who experience negative effects and also experience psychological benefit and personal growth from their work with trauma survivors. Literature regarding vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress is abundant, but few studies have been conducted that have been specifically designed to explore the experience of vicarious posttraumatic growth in providers of psychotraumatology.

In order to add to the insubstantial …

Comparison Of The Diagnostic Evaluation Of Language Variation-Screening Test (Delv-St) To Two Other Screeners For Low-Income, African American Children, Christy Wynn Moland

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of the DELV-ST by comparing it to two other screeners, the Fluharty-2 and the Washington-Craig Language Screener (WCLS). The participants were 73 African American Pre-K and Head Start children, aged four- to five-years-old. Fail rates were higher than what has been reported in the literature. They were highest for the Fluharty-2 (57%), lower for the DELV-ST (52%), and lowest for the WCLS (46%); however, there were no statistical differences in the fail rates by screener. Approximately 54% of the children passed or failed all screeners. Unfortunately, the remaining 46% failed …

Providing For The Common Defense: Internal Security And The Cold War, 1945-1975, Marc A. Patenaude

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

While the historiography of the Red Scare has often discussed the major internal security legislation passed during the period, the legislation in question is often given short shrift and characterized as a misguided response by Congress. It is important to examine this legislation not only for what it did for the internal security of the nation, but also for what it meant symbolically. Implementation of governmental policy, including internal security policy, through legislation often also serves as a window to the beliefs and values of those crafting the legislation. By examining the internal security legislation passed during the Red Scare, …

P,P' Dde Regulated Gene Expression And Possible Mechanisms Of Action In Breast Tumor, Nakpangi Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Background: The synthetic insecticide DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) has been speculated to increase breast cancer risk due to its environmental persistence, levels of bioaccumulation in breast adipose tissue, and endocrine disrupting actions. Epidemiological studies have had inconsistent findings, however a study in MMTV-neu mice determined that localized, developmental exposure to the reported anti-androgen p,p' DDE accelerated mammary tumor development. This study tested the potential cancer-promoting actions of p,p' DDE, the most prevalent and persistent DDT metabolite.

Objectives: To identify and characterize the expression of p,p' DDE -regulated genes to determine how developmental exposure may influence mammary tissue to promote tumor formation. Methods: …

"This Is Me Right Here": August Wilson And Pittsburgh's Hill District, Betina Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project highlights the connections between August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle and the history of property, ownership, and housing in the real world Hill District where Wilson was raised and set almost all his plays. The project examines seven of Wilson's plays in relation to the history that provides important context to these texts. He avoids most of the iconic markers associated with 20th century black American history and instead emphasizes the local, offering a decade-by-decade snapshot of a single African American neighborhood. Culturally, the Hill Districts's heyday ran from the 1930s to mid 50s, when many of the greatest contemporary …

The Effects Of Reiki Treatment On Mental Health Professionals Who Are At Risk For Secondary Traumatic Stress, Martha P. Novoa

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this cross-sectional experimental study was to examine the effects of Reiki on risk level for secondary traumatic stress (STS) among mental health professionals, such as, social workers and licensed professional counselor (LPCs). The sample (N=67) was mostly composed of master social work students (MSW) (61%) from the School of Social Work at Louisiana State University (LSU), professionals social workers (34%), and LPCs (5%). Study participants were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: Reiki, placebo or control group. Dependent variables measured at pretest and posttest were: risk level for STS, anxiety, depression, somatic symptoms, anger and …

Graduate Recital, Trumpet, Oskar Karst

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This recital encompasses the the full extent my graduate studies in Jazz Trumpet at Duquesne. Under the guidance of my teacher, Sean Jones, I developed improvisational skills in Jazz idioms such as swing, bebop, waltz and ballad playing. My program aims to showcase these skills. Additionally, I am including studies from my Performance Paper (Elements of Musical Vision: The Music of Frank Zappa) by performing an original composition that aims to take influence from the works of Frank Zappa.

Asians In The American Mind: How Americans View Asian Americans Politically, Nhung Kim Nguyen

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study explores how the general American public thinks about Asian Americans, who are a multiethnic, immigrant-dominated, fast-growing, and understudied group. Understanding Americans’ views toward Asians is important in light of the changing face of the American electorate, whose recent additions comprise largely of immigrants from Asia and Latin America, and the likelihood that Americans’ beliefs or thoughts about race and ethnicity will be altered beyond the black-white divide in U.S. politics. As an attempt to gain such understanding, the purpose of this study is to provide a systematic study of Americans’ attitudes toward Asians in terms of positive/negative evaluations …

Birth Matters: Discourses Of Childbirth In Contemporary American Culture, Jennifer Ellis West

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this project, I use a rhetorical-cultural approach to examine the multiple and often-contradictory messages circulating in contemporary American culture about the event of childbirth. Though many feminist scholars have shown how professional obstetrics’ view of physiological birth shapes medical practice and women’s experiences in hospitals, few have asked what the American public is learning about birth outside of the hospital, or why that knowledge might matter. In order to fill that gap, I trace a dominant narrative that positions institutionalized biomedical knowledge and technology as the exclusive producers of health and safety for birthing women and their babies in …

A Survey Of Rudy Davenport's Byna: Life Songs Of A Southern Appalachian Woman Of Cherokee Indian Descent (A Chamber Work For Soprano, Piano, Oboe And Cello), Tiffany I. Bostic-Brown

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Composer Rudy Davenport aims to create music that is more relatable than the atonal compositions often associated with 20th century composers. Inspired by his own Appalachian and Cherokee heritages, Davenport, in collaboration with librettist Delilah Elsen, developed his own musical genre called “Appalachian Romanticism”. This genre is evident in his work BYNA: Life Songs of a Southern Appalachian Woman of Cherokee Descent for Soprano, Piano, Oboe & Cello. The purpose of this study is to understand and describe Rudy Davenport’s view on 20th century composition. To obtain this information I interviewed Davenport posing questions about his biography and musical preferences, …

Application Of Counter-Stereotype Strategy For National Image Management: A Comparative Study Of U.S. And South Korean College Students' National Stereotypes Of China, Hyunmee Kang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The study sought to explore the applicability of national stereotypes for implicit stereotype by measuring reaction times (RTs). Also, the study intended to suggest a more effective national image management in overseas practices by demonstrating the effect of counter-stereotype strategy on country-of-origin (COO) effect. A focus of the study was on China and Chinese people for national stereotypes and Chinese corporations and products made in China for the COO effect, considering unfavorable national images of China in news media and negative impressions on products made in China. The study compared national stereotypes of China and Chinese people and COO effect …

Inter-Grade And Inter-Batch Variability Of Pharmaceutical-Grade Sodium Alginate, Shao Fu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Polymeric excipients are generally the least well-characterized components of pharmaceutical formulations. The aim of this dissertation work is to facilitate the quality-by-design (QbD) approach to pharmaceutical formulation and manufacturing by evaluating the inter-grade and inter-batch variability of pharmaceutical-grade polymeric excipients. Sodium alginate, a widely used polymeric excipient, was selected for evaluation using appropriate analytical methods and test conditions, especially rheological methods. The materials used were six different grades of sodium alginate and an additional ten batches of one of the grades.

To compare the six grades, steady shear measurements were conducted on solutions at 1, 2, and 3% w/w, consistent …

The Impact Of Full Time Versus Adjunct/Part Time Faculty Status On Course Assessments By Hospitality Management Students, Daryl Georger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over the past most recent decades, one of the most significant changes in post secondary education is the dramatic increase in the use of adjunct/part-time faculty members. As there are many potential advantages in the use of adjunct/part-time faculty there are also many possible concerns and disadvantages in the use of adjunct/part-time faculty. In order to balance the use of adjunct/part-time faculty and attempt to fully realize the advantages in using adjunct/part-time faculty while minimizing the disadvantages, it is important to determine what areas of university/college teaching are assessed by students differently between adjunct/part-time faculty and full time faculty instruction. …

Contingent Constellations: Frederick Douglass And The Fact Freedom, Tomohiro Hori

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Reading the celebrated Narrative (1845) of Frederick Douglass (1817-95) as well as his second autobiography My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) alongside the theories of freedom including Immanuel Kant’s and G. W. F. Hegel’s among others, this dissertation examines the process through which the young American slave Douglass discovers the idea of freedom and turns it into the primary object of his pursuit to the point that he stakes his life in his famed battle with the overseer Edward Covey. The experience of hearing other slaves’ voices—such as Aunt Hester’s cries and slave songs—opens his eyes to the darkest reality …

An Evaluation Of The Dangerous Choices I Program For Female High School Students, Aida Bazarkulova

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of the Dangerous Choices I program on increasing knowledge about teen dating violence for secondary school students. The sample size for this study comprised of seventy-one ninth grade female students from two different school districts who participated in the program during spring 2010. Pretest and posttest design was employed to determine the statistically significant differences among different groups. Each item of the questionnaire was analyzed to learn the level of awareness of participants about the nature of dating violence before participation in the program and if positive changes occurred following …

Federal Drug Sentencing: An Evaluation Of The Consistency, Proportionality, And Fairness Within Cases, Lindsay Barron

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

National drug policy has contributed to prison population growth in the United States. Blacks and Hispanics are minorities in the population, but are overrepresented as defendants in criminal courts and as inmates in prison. The purpose of this research is to evaluate fairness in federal drug sentencing. The current study uses data compiled by the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) to examine the sentence lengths of federal drug defendants sentenced in 2008. Linear ordinary least squares (OLS) regression is used to model the relationship between race/ethnicity and sentence lengths. The analysis of this research is framed by the focal concerns …

The Changing Nature Of Punishment: From Theology To Reform Ideology And Gallows To Penitentiaries, New England, 1674-1837, Daniel Belczak

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Criminal justice reforms of the early American Republic stand as an often examined area of research, but one source of explaining these changes is often neglected. By analyzing New England execution sermons preached from 1674 to 1825 several theological and ideological changes can be demonstrated that contributed to the growing rhetoric of reform. Such changes included opposition to the doctrine of original sin, an expansion in the understanding of salvation, and growing religious pluralism and. Due to these theological and ideological shifts, the sermons also show the movement from near universal religious support for the longstanding public execution ritual to …

The Relationship Between Academic Achievement And Economic Level At Selected High Schools In Western Pennsylvania And Their Impact On The Degree And Success Of Parental Inovlvement Strategies, Harry Bauman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Education accountability has risen due to the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) legislation, and practitioners are working harder, and with more creativity, than at any other time in recent history to find ways to improve student achievement. If a school fails to meet what has been determined to be "adequate yearly progress" (AYP), a mandated set of prescriptive guidelines, requirements and sanctions, are imposed by the government. One of these requirements is that an improvement plan be developed and approved by the department of education. This plan must include a listing of policies …

An Aloha State Of Mind: Performing Hawaiian Cultural Identities, Kirsten E. Ogden

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

There are many Hawaiian identities currently in effect. This dissertation explores several representative and contested Hawaiian identities, and how these identities develop through key performances, plays, and other representational practices by Hawaiians and by Locals. Due to its unique situation as one of only two U.S. states formerly with its own government, and as one of only two U.S. states not connected to the main land-mass of the United States, Hawaiian identity is complicated by multiple factors: sanitized historical constructions, sovereignty, intermingling ethnic identities, tourism, and reclaimed cultural practices. Additionally, Hawaiians as a native people hold a unique place in …

An Examination Of Errors Of Coherence In Adolescent Sentence Combining, Ginger Gunter Collins

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Young adolescents should be able to write organized multi-paragraph compositions that develop a central idea and unfold in logical and sequential order, unified through the use of transitional words and phrases. In other words, the compositions should not just consist of a string of related sentences, but represent a dynamic text that has coherence. It is important that speech-language pathologists develop quick and reliable methods for assessing coherence to aid in making data driven decisions and progress monitoring consistent with principles of Responsiveness to Intervention. Yet, the holistic quality of coherence makes it difficult to assess, both within a composition …

Interpretation And Expressive Imagery In The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto On Double Bass: Transcribed By Yung-Chiao Wei, Min-Tzu Chao

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this research paper is to show the interpretation of the Chinese piece—The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto—through expressing imagery. The concerto is composed by Chen Gang (陳鋼) and He Zhan-hao (何占豪) in 1959. In 2004, Yung-Chiao Wei, a double bass professor at Louisiana State University transcribed the piece for double bass. It is a very useful repertoire for double bass players to experience Chinese music through the plot’s expressing imagery. The Chinese musical language is different from Western music language in the concept of pentatonic scale, tone color, and tempo. I believe that double bass players can effectively …

Graduate Recital, Voice, Patrick Clinage

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This recital explores the bass-baritone character within both the opera and art song community, from recitative and arias symbolic of the Baroque style, to the Bel canto form of singing recitative and aria in the 19th century. This includes as well, the Romantic Lieder and Art songs that find themselves within the 20th century too. Vocally demanding, the singer finds themselves while switching from Baroque to Romantic, but the mission of this Recital is to understand vocally what needs to be achieved in order to sustain for a full hour-long performance. Works include opera arias from Don Pasquale, La Sonnambula, …

A Phenomenology Of Occupation-Based Hand Therapy, Donna Colaianni

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The founding philosophies of occupational therapy and the medical model have been in conflict within the practice of occupational therapy for more than 60 years. This conflict is especially evident in the hand therapy arena due to the prevalence of the medical model. There is extensive literature outside this specialty area indicating that an occupation-based approach is beneficial for patients with whom it is used yet there is a lack of research on occupation-based hand therapy. Clearly describing and defining what constitutes occupation-based hand therapy can help promote occupation-based practice in keeping with the philosophy of the profession and facilitate …

Organizational Communication Through An Historic Lens: Social Responsibility, Diversity, And Inclusion, Linda Coleman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work examines the development of organizational communication through significant historic periods in the United States. Each chapter is examined in the context of social responsibility, diversity, and inclusion. The work concludes with a case study of the United States Steel Corporation as an example of an historically grounded organization that remained philosophically grounded in their core mission and values as set forth by Elbert Gary, their first president and CEO. Additive change and the need to remain attuned to the historic moment while moving toward the future is explored.

Student Problem Solving Communication Processes While Completing Multimedia Case Studies: A Look Into The Relationship Among Levels Of Collaboration, Problem Solving Processes, And Problem Solving Performance On Individual And Group Levels, Jan Elizabeth Broussard

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In an effort to better prepare students to become productive members of the work force, educators must grant students the opportunities to become critical thinkers. Students need to be able to learn to inquire, create, and think critically in order to obtain meaningful information from the abundance of knowledge that is accessible to them through the Internet and the World Wide Web. This quasi-experimental study examined the effects of online collaborative problem solving processes during a multimedia case study. Sixty-one students in two undergraduate management information systems classes agreed to participate. The experimental class, section 01, was required to use …

A Lesbian Parented Family's Acceptance And Experiences In Family, Social, And Educational Systems: A Qualitative Case Study, Sarah Dalton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This single case study was created to investigate one lesbian parented family's experiences in family, social, and educational systems to gain perspective on their overall happiness. In depth face-to-face interviews were conducted with two lesbian parents currently raising three children. After data collection and analysis, the researcher constructed six findings based on the primary research questions. The study determined that regardless of minor discrimination in the systems, the parents and their children have positive experiences in their family, social, and educational systems. The parents also offered ideas about political and social changes that would improve their lives. Overall, the study …

Therapist And Client Experience Of Collaborative Assessment: A Qualitative Study, John Danna

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Within the field of assessment psychology, only recently have efforts been made to study the potentially therapeutic benefits of increasing the involvement of client participation in the assessment process. Little attention has been paid to the experiential aspects of this style of assessment from both therapist and client perspectives during the assessment and discussion sessions. Gaining insight into these experiences in order to better inform and enhance the practice of a collaborative and therapeutic style of psychological assessment is the primary focus of this research project. This study's methodology draws from qualitative methods used previously to study the process of …