Digital Commons Network^™

What About The Black Greeks? : Supporting Nphcs At Pwis, Aleidra Allen

LSU Master's Theses

Many Black Greek-Letter organizations (BGLOs) were founded at historically black colleges and universities. However, subsequent chapters were chartered at various institutional types, including predominately White institutions (PWIs). Nine BGLOs make up the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC), their umbrella organization. At PWIs, this council is typically housed in the same office as the predominately White fraternity and sorority councils. Still, there are many attributes of NPHC that make it unique from the others. To best direct this study, existing literature was reviewed. Few scholars examined NPHC specifically and little attention was given to institutional types. The purpose of this study is …

Developmental Detour: How The Minimalism Of Miller V. Alabama Led The Court's "Kids Are Different" Eighth Amendment Jurisprudence Down A Blind Alley, Mary E. Berkheiser

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Backpacker Selves In A Hostel: Discourse, Identity, And Existential Authenticity, Emley Kerry

LSU Master's Theses

Backpacker tourists are able to boldly lay claim to authenticity to local place—especially as they see themselves in relation to more (by their categorization) mainstream tourists—through the feeling of an authentic self that arises through backpacking tourism. Backpacker discourse about travel embodied travel experiences reflects and shapes sense of existential authenticity, a transformative travel euphoria in which the backpacker’s true identity is discovered through intense, sensuous experiences and perception of immersion in a foreign culture. This thesis uses ethnographic information and methods collected in a number of hostels—but primarily in Bogotá, Colombia—in order to demonstrate the relationship between the material, …

What You Attend To Is What You Remember : Investigating The Unit Of Representation In Visual Working Memory, Amanda Elaine Van Lamsweerde

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The unit of representation in visual working memory (VWM) is a matter of some debate. The object benefit occurs when more features are remembered when they are combined into fewer objects. This has been used to support the perspective that objects are the unit of representation in VWM. However, the object benefit occurs only for two features from different dimensions (e.g., a blue circle: color and shape) but not two features from the same dimension (e.g., a red-and-blue bi-colored square: two colors). This suggests that both objects and features may be important in determining VWM capacity. The purpose of this …

An Examination Of The Stimuli Used In And The Theories Behind The Cross-Modal Stroop Task, Danielle A. Lutfi-Proctor

LSU Master's Theses

The classic Stroop task, during which one names the ink color of color words, has long been used as a measure of selective attention (Stroop, 1935). Selective attention generally refers to our ability to attend to one stimulus (a target) while ignoring another (a distractor). Since its initial creation, many variations of the classic Stroop task have been developed. One of these variations is cross-modal Stroop, which uses visual colored targets and auditory distractor color words. However, whether the same mechanisms and processes are used while completing the two tasks has yet to be determined. The following thesis examined cross-modal …

Quizzing And Retention In The High School Science Class, Donell Debacker Evans

LSU Master's Theses

There is a need to identify educational tools and methods that are easily assimilated into a secondary science education classroom. The use of testing as an educational tool, rather than as a summative assessment only, has emerged as a possible solution. Test-enhanced learning is attributed to the testing effect (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006). The testing effect refers to the higher probability of recalling an item resulting from the act of retrieving the item from memory (testing) versus additional study trials of the item (Craney et al., 2008). A comparison of frequent testing/quizzing versus no quizzing outcomes were studied to determine …

Behavioral Legal Ethics, Jean R. Sternlight, Jennifer K. Robbennolt

Scholarly Works

Complaints about lawyers’ ethics are commonplace. While it is surely the case that some attorneys deliberately choose to engage in misconduct, psychological research suggests a more complex story. It is not only “bad apples” who are unethical. Instead, ethical lapses can occur more easily and less intentionally than we might imagine. In this paper, we examine the ethical “blind spots,” slippery slopes, and “ethical fading” that may lead good people to behave badly. We then explore specific aspects of legal practice that can present particularly difficult challenges for lawyers given the nature of behavioral ethics - complex and ambiguous ethical …

The Relationship Between Faculty Salary Outlays And Student Retention In Public Four-Year Universities In The Sixteen States Of The Southern Regional Education Board, Belinda Powell Aaron

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to determine if the allocation of faculty salary expenditures has an influence on first-time, full time freshmen retention rates. The population for this study was all public degree granting undergraduate four-year postsecondary institutions accredited by the Southern Region Education Board in the 16 member states with information reported to the U.S Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System database. An inverse relationship exists between first-time, full time student retention and average undergraduate student age. A model exists to predict student retention rates using the regional comparable wage index to suggest this variable can …

Metaphor And Analogy: The Sun And Moon Of Legal Persuasion, Linda L. Berger

Scholarly Works

Drawing on recent studies of social cognition, decision making, and analogical processing, this article recommends that lawyers turn to novel characterizations and metaphors to solve a particular kind of persuasion problem that is created by the way judges and juries think and decide. According to social cognition researchers, we perceive and interpret new information by following a process of schematic cognition, analogizing the new data we encounter to the knowledge structures embedded in our memories. Decision-making researchers differentiate between intuitive and reflective processes (System 1 and System 2), and they agree that in System 1 decision making, only the most …

The Concept Of Time In Rehabilitation And Psychosocial Adaptation To Chronic Illness And Disability: Parts I And Ii, Hanoch Livneh

Counselor Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

Human fascination with the concept of time can be traced to antiquity. Time has been viewed as fundamental to all human experience, and efforts to understand its nature, structure, and relationship to the human experience have generated a burgeoning body of literature, over the past two millennia, among philosophers, astronomers, physicists, and more recently psychologists. Yet, the field of rehabilitation counseling has been rather silent on the role of time and especially its place in understanding psychosocial adaptation to chronic illnesses and disabilities. In the first part of this article, the author seeks to (a) provide a brief review of …

Public Contact With And Perceptions Regarding Police In Portland, Oregon, Brian Renauer, Kimberly Barsamian Kahn, Kris R. Henning, Greg Stewart

Criminal Justice Policy Research Institute Research Briefs

On September 12, 2012 the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a complaint in the Federal District Court for Oregon asserting that the City of Portland has engaged in a pattern and practice of unnecessary or excessive force against persons experiencing a mental health crisis. This survey is the result of a settlement agreement between Portland’s City Council and the DOJ which specified the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) develop a means of assessing public perceptions.

The first report generated by the research team examined general attitudes of residents. This second report focuses on an area pertinent to the DOJ …

Concussion And Football: Failures To Respond By The Nfl And The Medical Profession, David Orentlicher

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Ownership-Usage Dichotomy And The Human Element In Newman's Freeconomy, Damon C. Andrews

Vanderbilt Law Review

No abstract provided.

Relationship Between Childhood Sexual Abuse, Weight, And Attitudes Toward Obesity In Lesbians, Amy L. Wright

LSU Master's Theses

In many professional practice settings, it is very likely that social workers will work with female clients who identify as lesbian or bisexual. These sexual minority females are more likely to be overweight or obese, have a history of childhood sexual abuse, and have more positive attitudes toward overweight and obesity than heterosexual women. In this study, the author sought to identify the relationship between childhood sexual abuse, obesity, (specifically, body mass index [BMI]), and attitudes toward obesity among lesbian and bisexual women. Eighty-five sexual minority females completed a survey. Childhood sexual abuse was found to be positively correlated with …

What Cognitive Dissonance Tells Us About Tone In Persuasion, Kathryn M. Stanchi

Scholarly Works

This Article takes the first step in thinking about where good advocacy should draw the line between zeal and coercion. Legal advocates differ about how to navigate that line.' Is the best service to the client to be found in the most aggressive, strongest, hard-line approach? Or is a more tempered, reasonable approach most likely to produce the best results?

This Article looks at cognitive science for guidance on this question. One cognitive process that seems to be integral to tone is cognitive dissonance, a concept I will explain in Part II. I then take a close look at two …

Alopecia Areata: An Overview, Chaya Gestetner

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

This review seeks to find the most efficient treatment for alopecia areata. Alopecia is not very well understood as demonstrated by the unsatisfactory treatment options. The author reviewed many studies with different treatment options and concluded that treatment with Diphenylcyclopropenone (DPCP), a topical sensitizer, has the best results and that extensive research into the pathogenesis of alopecia areata is still necessary and may result in better treatment options for those afflicted with the disease.

Full Issue: Volume 6, Number 2

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

No abstract provided.

Narrative Versus Nonnarrative: The Role Of Identification, Transportation And Emotion In Reducing Health Disparities, Sheila T. Murphy, Lauren B. Frank, Joyee S. Chatterjee, Lourdes Baezconde-Garbanati

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

This research empirically tests whether using a fictional narrative produces a greater impact on health-related knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral intention than presenting the identical information in a more traditional, nonfiction, non-narrative format. European American, Mexican American, and African American women (N = 758) were surveyed before and after viewing either a narrative or non-narrative cervical cancer-related film. The narrative was more effective in increasing cervical cancer-related knowledge and attitudes. Moreover, in response to the narrative featuring Latinas, Mexican Americans were most transported, identified most with the characters, and experienced the strongest emotions. Regressions revealed that transportation, identification with specific characters, …

"Sexting" And Surveillance: How Smartphones Change Workplace Harassment, Nantiya Ruan

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Skinny Secrets: Promoting The "Less Is More" Ideology In Women's Diet Books, Cassidy Felker Garbutt

Master's Theses (2009 -)

This thesis uses textual analysis to explore and analyze messages in six popular women's diet self-help books published between 2005 and 2012. This work is grounded in feminist theory and discusses the ways in which women's diet books encourage readers to think about women and weight loss. Findings of the study indicate that women's diet books do three things: first, they discourage women from dieting, while simultaneously promoting diet-like strategies for them to follow; second, they create and reinforce a "naturally thin" ideal for women; third, they use empowerment rhetoric to place the responsibility and burden of weight loss on …

The Relationship Between Excessive Anterior Overlap And Dental Status, Steven Koutnik

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Aim: This study was designed to analyze the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survery (NHANES III) database to determine whether excessive overlap of the anterior teeth was related to an increase in structural dental problems.

Materials and Methods: The NHANES III database was procured from the

National Center for Healthcare Statistics for the purpose of investigating whether a relationship exists between tooth condition and occlusal characteristics of horizontal and vertical overlap. The sample population was limited to those aged 18-50 to incorporate those people who had both Restoration and Tooth Condition Scores and Occlusal Characteristics. The subject set was …

Queering The Catalog: Queer Theory And The Politics Of Correction, Emily Drabinski

Publications and Research

Critiques of hegemonic library classification structures and controlled vocabularies have a rich history in information studies. This project has pointed out the trouble with classification and cataloging decisions that are framed as objective and neutral but are always ideological and worked to correct bias in library structures. Viewing knowledge organization systems from a queer perspective, however, challenges the idea that classification and subject language can ever be finally corrected. Engaging queer theory and library classification and cataloging together requires new ways of thinking about how to be ethically and politically engaged on behalf of marginal knowledge formations and identities who …

Lacan, Ideology, And Military Behavioral Health: Exploring Interpellation Psychodiscursively, Joseph R. Van Der Naald

University Honors Theses

Recent research in psychosocial studies that draws on a theoretical framework of Lacanian psychoanalysis has granted social psychology with a rich understanding of individuals’ investments in discursive subject positions. The Lacanian psychosocial conception of subjectivity considers how multiple paradoxical narratives, conditioned by desire, form a complex subject constituted through discourse. However, this paradigm has yet to produce a psychosocial discursive analysis of subjection via ideological interpellation. This discourse analysis combines psychoanalytic cultural criticism with Lacanian psychosocial studies to produce an analytic methodology. The thesis then employs this methodology to examine a case study of three interview transcripts from Dr. Janice …

(Ad)Dressing The Other: The Amazon In Greek Art, Annaliese Elaine Patten

University Honors Theses

The mythological Amazon represents the opposite of Greek ideals, contrasting the Ancient Greek identity and their societal ideals. In this thesis, I reconsider the role of the Amazon in Greek art between 750 and 400 BCE with particular focus on costume as an indication of a gendered and ethnic Other. This construction of the Other is conveyed through poetic description and visual motif in the minor arts. Responding to previous discourse, I will provide an alternative exploration of Athenian propensity to relegate unwanted foreign traits into the portrayal of the Amazon. The illustrated clothing is adapted to the scope of …

An Inquiry Into The Division Of Labor, Raul Reyes

University Honors Theses

This inquiry seeks to establish that Adam Smith relies upon his books The Theory of Moral Sentiments [1959] and An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations [1776] as complementary texts to introduce and develop his ideas. We will begin with a background of economic thinkers prior to Smith. After summarizing an example of this division of labor by Adam Smith, we will delve into the benefits of the division of labor: more skilled workers, time efficiency, and the invention of proper machinery. Similarly, we will examine the implications brought by this division of labor with …

Language, Politics, And History: An Introductory Essay, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

This book chapter examines different articulations of language and history and introduces a new configuration that focuses on the political dimension of language.

Effects Of Hypertension And Diabetes On Sentence Comprehension In Aging, Dalia Cahana-Amitay, Martin Albert, Emmanuel Ojo, Jesse Sayers, Mira Goral, Loraine Obler, Avron Spiro Iii

Publications and Research

Objectives. To assess the impact of hypertension and diabetes mellitus on sentence comprehension in older adults.

Method. Two hundred and ninety-five adults aged 55 to 84 (52% men) participated in this study. Self-report mail survey combined with medical evaluations were used to determine eligibility. Multiple sources were used to determine whether hypertension and diabetes were present or absent and controlled or uncontrolled. Sentence comprehension was evaluated with two tasks: embedded sentences (ES) and sentences with multiple negatives (MN). Outcome measures were percent accuracy and mean reaction time of correct responses on each task.

Results. Regression models adjusted for age, gender, …

Hemispheric Processing Of Vocal Emblem Sounds, Yael Neumann-Werth, Erika Levy, Loraine Obler

Publications and Research

Vocal emblems, such as shh and brr, are speech sounds that have linguistic and nonlinguistic features; thus, it is unclear how they are processed in the brain. Five adult dextral individuals with left-brain damage and moderate– severe Wernicke’s aphasia, five adult dextral individuals with right-brain damage, and five Controls participated in two tasks: (1) matching vocal emblems to photographs (‘picture task’) and (2) matching vocal emblems to verbal translations (‘phrase task’). Cross-group statistical analyses on items on which the Controls performed at ceiling revealed lower accuracy by the group with left-brain damage (than by Controls) on both tasks, and …

Linguistic Emancipation And The Academies Of The Spanish Language In The Twentieth Century: The 1951 Turning Point, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

In this article, the author focuses on the conference of academies of the Spanish language that took place in Mexico in 1951 and analyzes the discourses on language as well as the views on the linguistic institutions that emerged in the course of the conference. The reasons for the Real Academia Española´s absence are addressed and so is the initiative by Mexico´s president Miguel Alemán.

Popular Music Studies And The Problems Of Sound, Society And Method, Eliot Bates

Publications and Research

Building on Philip Tagg’s timely intervention (2011), I investigate four things in relation to three dominant Anglophone popular music studies journals (Popular Music and Society, Popular Music, and the Journal of Popular Music Studies): 1) what interdisciplinarity or multidisciplinarity means within popular music studies, with a particular focus on the sites of research and the place of ethnographic and/or anthropological approaches; 2) the extent to which popular music studies has developed canonic scholarship, and the citation tendencies present within scholarship on both Western and non-Western popular musics; 3) the motivations for two scholarly groups, Dancecult and ASARP, to breakaway from …