Digital Commons Network^™

The Mercer Girls Guide To Immigration, Jennifer M. Chacon

Vanderbilt Law Review

No abstract provided.

Designing Populations: Lessons In Power And Population Production From Nineteenth-Century Immigration Law, Juliet Stumph

Vanderbilt Law Review

No abstract provided.

Engaging The Legal Academy In Disaster Response, Davida Finger, Laila Hlass, Anne Sikes Hornsby, Susan S. Kuo, Rachel A. Van Cleave

Faculty Scholarship

This article discusses three models of law school engagement that have been used to respond to natural disasters. The three models discussed are a disaster law clinic, a course on disaster law, and a student-led initiative featuring non-credit, pro bono placements. Each model offers a conceptual approach for integrating community-based, justice-oriented initiatives into academic and clinical teaching. Taken as templates for a more permanent model of engagement in the area of post-disaster law and social justice, these models demonstrate that the legal academy can meet its service obligation to the community while training lawyers to better appreciate the central tenets …

The Puzzle Of Independent Directors: New Learning, Frederick Tung

Faculty Scholarship

In this symposium paper, I discuss and critique some new empirical learning on independent directors.

The independent director has always offered a sort of magic bullet for corporate governance, representing the idealized monitor of executives’ behavior. Yet we corporate law scholars also harbor some ambivalence about the magic of this bullet. As much as we want to trust in the promise of independent directors, no solid empirical evidence exists to suggest that independent directors add value. Moreover, we have seen spectacular failures in the face of independent boards.

How do we account for this disconnect between our intuitions and best …

Tourism, Persistence, And Change: Sherpa Spirituality And Place In Sagarmatha (Mount Everest) National Park And Buffer Zone, Nepal, Jeremy Spoon

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Ecotourism and cultural tourism are emerging as vehicles for many of the world’s indigenous peoples to integrate into the global market economy. The ecological knowledge and understanding of these societies may in turn be affected by these nascent industries. As part of shifting human-environment relationships, tourism can influence place-based spirituality. In this manuscript, I describe research on how tourism affected Khumbu Sherpa place-based spiritual values in Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) National Park and Buffer Zone, Nepal. As Tibetan Buddhists, the Sherpa embodied dual overlapping conceptions of sacred landscape that connected people to place in some environmentally sustainable ways. Since the 1960s, …

Factors Affecting Student Use Of Information Technology: A Comparative Study Of Federal University Of Technology, Owerri And Niger Delta University, Amazoma, Joyce Chinyere Oyadonghan, Felix Mmanuoma Eke

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

A survey of two universities in Nigeria explored the use of information technology by students. Registered student users of FUTO and NDU library make adequate use of IT resources. However the return of duly completed questionnaire shows that 500 level students of FUTO and 400 level of students of NDU uses the IT in the library more than other levels as shown in table 1. The use of photocopying machine ranked highest amongst the student of both University. But a similar study on the use of internet and electronic resources by Dental science students at Baba Farid university of health …

Threat, Violence, And Voters: Race And Context In The 2008 Presidential Election, Matthew Fowler

LSU Master's Theses

The 2008 Presidential Election brought into office the first African-American president in U.S. history. This paper analyzes variations in White support for Barack Obama based on a number of county-level contextual factors, which are hypothesized to influence aggregate White voter support for the Democratic candidate. Based on the well-known racial threat theory, this paper will explore how racial composition and income inequality effect White support for Barack Obama. Another key explanatory variable, violence, is thought to influence White voter support because of the preconceptions some of these voters hold about African-Americans. Violence helps shape the stereotypes White voters hold, and …

Reconnaissance De L'Autre Et Métissage Culturel À Travers Les Littératures Et Paralittératures De La Polynésie Française Et De La Novelle-Calédonie: Contextes Et Textes, Didier Lenglare

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

French Polynesia and New Caledonia are facing an identity crisis in which the lack of recognition of otherness represents a serious risk to the sociopolitical cohesion of these fragile multiethnic and multicultural societies. In order to avoid self-destructive conflicts and to build harmony in the midst of ethnic diversity, an endogenous inclusive redefinition of cultural identities has become necessary. Within this context, this research had a double objective. First, it aimed to ascertain how this quest for recognition of the Other is represented in the emerging literature of French speaking Oceania. Secondly, its purpose was to understand the social and …

Comparative Biogeography Of The Arid Lands Of Central Mexico, Jesus Abraham Fernandez

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Most biogeographic studies on the Mexican biota have assumed that the dramatic climate cycles of the Pleistocene epoch and the prominence of the Trans-Mexico Volcanic Belt have played major roles in the origin and diversification of species. Here the pylogenetics and biogeography of four codistributed rodent species were studied. In each case, a phylogenetic hypothesis for the taxon and allied species using two mitochondrial (Cytochrome-b and 12S), and two nuclear genes (GHR and IRBP) was generated, appropriate taxonomic changes were recommended, and a temporal framework was generated to identify events that may have produced the phylogenetic pattern. Nelson’s woodrat Neotoma …

(Im)Possibilities Of Theatre And Transgression: The Critical Impact Of Transgressive Theatrical Practices, Christopher J. Krejci

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

While performance practitioners often rely on socially, aesthetically, and politically transgressive practices to critically impact the socio-political climate outside the theater walls, transgression is fraught with contradiction. Historically, acts of transgression have led to both the expansion and suppression of democratic rights. (Im)possibilites of Theatre and Transgression employs a critical lens that takes into account the historical and ideological specificities of individual productions in Austin, TX and Baton Rouge, LA to argue that transgressive theatrical practices both counter and reproduce normalizing discourses and discourses of domination in local and regional culture. This study focuses on the types of aesthetically, socially, …

A Computer-Based Instructional Program To Teach Braille Reading To Sighted Individuals, Mindy Scheithauer

LSU Master's Theses

There is a need for efficient braille training methods for instructors of the visually impaired. This study evaluated the use of a computer-based program intended to train the relation of braille characters to English letters using a matching-to-sample procedure with 4 sighted college students. Each participant mastered matching visual depictions of the braille alphabet to their text counterparts. Further, each participant demonstrated the ability to read a braille passage following this exposure. These gains maintained at variable levels at a follow-up probe 2 to 4 weeks following training.

Landscape, Mobilities, And Performance: An Autoethnographic And Visual Engagement With Public Protests In Washington, Dc, Paul Ronald Watts

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines how geography’s traditional approach to studying cultural landscapes, which has been largely reliant upon vision, should also include the embodied practices: the customary and habitual actions that inform human engagement. Using public protests in Washington, DC as an extended case study, I reveal an underlying tension between protest participants’ embodied practices and material objects in the built environment. I accomplish this by drawing from over one year’s fieldwork in Washington, where I used qualitative approaches, including—but not limited to—participant observation and autoethnography, to engage in public protests as an embodied participant. To support my empirical data, I …

An Agent-Based Simulation Model For Business Reopenings In New Orleans Post Hurricane Katrina, Helbert Arenas

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The empirical study of business responses to disasters is relatively scarce, despite that they are a fundamental part of the cities, providing services, jobs and, taxes that are essential for urban sustainability. This dissertation develops an agent-based simulation model to represent and understand the businesses reopening process in a dynamic environment in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The objectives are two-fold: 1) To identify the main reopening predictors involved and estimate their relative importance through time, using an empirical data set collected from another study; 2) To represent the business reopening process through a computer simulation model, using the parameters …

Sexo Asimétrico: El Pensamiento No Dicotómico Del Cuerpo A Partir De La Sexualizacióon Del Otro (Sobre Algunas Fotos De María Zorzon Y Gabriela Liffschitz), Kristen Michelle Hubbard

LSU Master's Theses

Each body has certain cultural values attached to it regarding the way in which it should perform in public. The body is marked by dichotomous thinking (masculine/feminine, healthy/sick, sacred/degraded, artistic/pornographic, etc.) that dictates its presentation in visual culture. In Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism, Elizabeth Grosz states the importance of non-dichotomous thinking for feminist and gender studies scholars and gives guidelines to deconstruct these hegemonic dualities. The purpose of this thesis is to show how the eroticization of the body of Other, in accordance with Grosz’s guidelines, can be useful in upsetting taken-for-granted social roles thus leading to non-dichotomous …

Should Black Immigrants Be Favored Over Black Hispanics And Black Multiracials In The Admissions Processes Of Selective Higher Education Programs?, Kevin D. Brown

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Since the origin of affirmative action, selective higher education institutions' have generally lumped all blacks into a unified Black/ African/African American category. However, this practice of treating all blacks alike has now changed. The Department of Education ("DOE") issued the Final Guidance on Maintaining, Collecting, and Reporting Racial and Ethnic Data to the United States Department of Education ("Guidance") in October 2007, which had a final implementation date for the reporting school year of 2010-2011. The Guidance marked the first time that the federal government dictated the procedures that educational institutions, including selective higher education programs, must follow when collecting …

Understanding Online Sourcing Decisions From The Service Clients' Perspective: An Integrative Theoretical Framework, Baozhou Lu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this study we empirically examine a new global phenomenon - online sourcing – with a quantitative research method. Online sourcing is the newest development in outsourcing recently that uses Internet as the primary sourcing platform to approach the global sourcing of services. We believe that the emergence of online sourcing will fundamentally change the way work is done. Thus, gaining a deep understanding of the adoption of online sourcing becomes particularly important. Drawing upon theories of firms including transaction cost theory, we propose an integrative theoretical framework for the understanding of online sourcing decisions from the service clients’ perspective. …

Demography, Paleopathology, And Health Status Of The Moche Remains In Huambacho, Peru: A Comprehensive Osteological Analysis, Emily Grace

LSU Master's Theses

The Moche civilization, which thrived in northern Peru from AD 100-800, influenced a vast area that extended to the southernmost monumental site of Pañamarca. Huambacho, an archaeological site in the Nepeña Valley, which dates to the Early Horizon (600-200 cal BC), has yielded multiple Moche graves uncovered by the Proyecto Huambacho (2003-2004). The graves provide the first evidence of Moche presence outside of the neighboring Pañamarca monumental complex. This research entailed the osteological analysis of eleven individuals from nine Moche grave contexts at Huambacho, including the analysis of demographic features, pathology, trauma, and antemortem cultural modifications. Methodology included the visual …

Evolutionary History Of Isolation And Dispersal In North American Ground Skinks (Scinella Lateralis), Nathan Daniel Jackson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The geographical range, abundance, and cohesion of populations can track landscape and climatic dynamism in ways that help set (and reset) the evolutionary trajectory of a species. Understanding the nature of this interaction can elucidate both evolutionary and geographical history as well as clarify the parameters that govern diversification. In this study, I apply multilocus genetic data from populations of the North American ground skink, Scincella lateralis, to investigate phylogeographic history as well as the interaction between population genetic and geographical processes that have shaped it. First, I examined the geographic distribution of genetic diversity for S. lateralis and tested …

An Assessment Of Atmospheric Factors Impacting Tropospheric Ozone In The Baton Rouge, Louisiana Non-Attainment Zone, Andrew Douglas Augustine

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is one of the metropolitan areas in the United States that currently does not meet the national ambient air quality standard for tropospheric ozone. In addition to petrochemical and other industrial activities, the climatological characteristics of the area meaningfully impact the development of tropospheric ozone. This research study attempts to assess factors contributing to elevated concentrations of tropospheric ozone.

Hourly observations of surface ozone concentrations were analyzed for eleven ambient air quality stations in the Baton Rouge metropolitan nonattainment zone (BRNAZ). Data covering a 15-year period, January 1993 – Dec 2007, was characterized according to varying temporal …

Analysis Of Three Types Of Sources To Determine The Existence Of Native Bees In Historical San Francisco, East Bay Area, Sharon Lee Ordeman

Master's Theses

The arrival of the missionaries in the late eighteenth century began the transformation of the San Francisco East Bay area from wetlands to orchards, grain fields, and grazing lands. This research considers the possibility that European and American newcomers enlarged native bee ranges in the East Bay cities of San Leandro, San Lorenzo, and Hayward when imported pollen and nectar-producing flora were planted. Three types of sources are analyzed: journals and diaries of explorers, missionaries, and botanists; native bee and plant specimens collected before the Gold Rush in 1848; and ethnographies of Ohlone Native Americans. Conclusive evidence for the presence …

Glacial Deposits, Vol. 39, 2010-2011, Department Of Geography-Geology

Glacial Deposits

Newsletter of the Department of Geography-Geology

The Variable Value Of U.S. Legal Education In The Global Legal Services Market, Carole Silver

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Many U.S. law firms now claim to be global organizations, and they seek to occupy the same high status everywhere they work. In part, simply supporting overseas offices is an indication of status for U.S.-based firms. But firms want more than this and they strive for recognition as elite advisors around the world. In this pursuit, have firms identified a set of common characteristics and credentials that define a "global lawyer?" That is, is there a uniform and universal profile, or perhaps a set of assets that comprise global professional capital, which are emerging as the indicia of credibility and …

Analysis Of Marine Sediment Of Prehispanic Maya Saltworks 24 And 35 In Paynes Creek National Park, Southern Belize, Roberto Rosado Ramirez

LSU Master's Theses

Through the study of four marine sediment columns taken at two different underwater Classic Maya sites identified as saltworks facilities in southern Belize, this research had the objective of provide some insights on the occupation of these sites and the formation of their archaeological record. The marine sediment studied in this research was composed of partially decomposed plant matter, inorganic minerals, and water in different proportions, with mangrove roots composing the major organic component of the mangrove peat. This research included macroscopic descriptions of the marine sediment, loss-on ignition of 32 samples uniformly distributed throughout the sediment columns to determine …

Product Safety And Security In The Global Supply Chain: Issues, Challenges And Research Opportunities, Ann Marucheck, Noel Greis, Carlos Mena, Linning Cai

Business Faculty Publications and Presentations

number of high profile product safety events and recalls have heightened public attention to the safety and security of the products that people consume and use. While product safety isn’t a new topic, the effect of the global supply chain in creating or exacerbating safety risks and vulnerabilities is both timely and relevant. In this essay we focus on how the field of operations management can provide fresh perspectives and insights in addressing the challenges of product safety and security in the global supply chain. We first examine the product safety issues and challenges that arise in five industries that …

The Lower Ninth Ward: Resistance, Recovery, And Renewal, Alexandra Giancarlo

LSU Master's Theses

After Hurricane Katrina of 2005, New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward became an icon for the failure of recovery efforts and the persistence of inequality and poverty in American society. However, for as long as this community has been marginalized it has been creating advocacy organizations and counter-narratives that battled discrimination and imbued its cultural practices with meaning. Residents often speak of a profound sense of community attachment, a commitment to educational prospects, and a deep historic and cultural identity. Historically, this area has been home to various social and legal campaigns, mirroring the contemporary protests that arose when residents encountered …

Care Of Myocardial Infarction In The Rural Setting : Stemi Care In Traill County, Travis Waswick

Undergraduate Theses and Senior Projects

No abstract provided.

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 …

Revolutionary Republics: U.S. National Narratives And The Independence Of Latin America, 1810-1846, James Weldon Long

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Revolutionary Republics analyzes how U.S. literature depicted the independence of Latin America, focusing on the period from the beginning of the Spanish American revolutions in 1810 to the outbreak of the U.S.-Mexican War in 1846. During this brief timespan, the nation’s literature featured a radical transition in which the independent republics of Latin America shifted from being viewed as “southern brethren” of the United States, a term used by such prominent public figures as Daniel Webster and John Quincy Adams, to hostile enemies allegedly in need of assistance from their northern neighbor. This reversal exposes a contradiction between the imperialist …

Social Vulnerability In Louisiana's Upper Industrial Corridor: Spatial Distribution And Linkages With Cumulative Pollution - A Zip Code Level Analysis, María Belén Toscano

LSU Master's Theses

Louisiana’s industrial corridor, the stretch of the lower Mississippi River from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, is one of the areas with the highest concentration of petrochemical facilities and chemical plants in the United States, as well as one of the most heavily polluted. In particular, the present study examined the associations of social vulnerability and potential exposure to environmental pollution in the upper section of the industrial corridor, the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). The study was based on the methodology developed by Cutter et al. (2003) to construct an empirically derived index to measure social vulnerability to …

A Mixed Methodological Assessment Of Personal Development Of Undergraduate Orientation Leaders, Kimberly Dottolo Roberts

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Orientation programs, while unique in their own design and implementation across campuses, offer incoming students the opportunity to become acquainted with the institutional environment. A particularly important element of orientation programs is the component of orientation leaders who serve as peer mentors and guides to incoming students. These students fulfill several responsibilities of the institution and develop a lasting rapport with incoming students. Orientation leaders have the opportunity to personally develop and gain valuable skills as a result of working the orientation program. Kolb’s experiential learning model provides a framework that explains an orientation leader’s personal development. Kolb’s model consists …