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2014

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Rituales De Reciprocidad En Los Carnavales Indígenas Andinos, Liliana Mcguffin-Naranjo Jan 2014

Rituales De Reciprocidad En Los Carnavales Indígenas Andinos, Liliana Mcguffin-Naranjo

LSU Master's Theses

The rituals acts of reciprocity celebrated during the indigenous carnival in the Andes creates communion within the community, and the sacred. In particular, this work focuses on the symbolic meaning of the rituals offerings; celebrated throughout the Andes during the Carnival season, from November to a movable period between February and March. These rituals of reciprocity are dyadic contracts that aid in the cohesiveness of their indigenous experience functioning as agents of their indigeneity; and are a vital part of maintaining and revitalizing their traditions. Using an interpretative and a historiography approach; it is possible to explore the symbolic meaning …

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Prophets, Studio Revolutionaries, And On-The-Ground Activist: Hip-Hop/Rap Artists' Approaches To Community Engagement, Castel Sweet Jan 2014

Prophets, Studio Revolutionaries, And On-The-Ground Activist: Hip-Hop/Rap Artists' Approaches To Community Engagement, Castel Sweet

LSU Master's Theses

With few exceptions, previous scholarship on rap and hip-hop music focuses on the study of lyrics and videos; emphasizing the negative influence that artists have on their communities and on perpetuating inequality in the United States. Contrarily, this study explores artists’ embeddedness in local communities, their interpretation of the connectedness of their work to their communities, and the impact they have as individual civic actors outside the narrow limits of their art. Using in-depth interviews with self-identified rap and located in the Southern region of the United States, I explore artists’ personal narratives of the social issues that plague their …

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"Post Your Version Here!": Performances In/Of Online, Noncommercial, Video-To-Video Adaptations, Lyndsay Michalik Jan 2014

"Post Your Version Here!": Performances In/Of Online, Noncommercial, Video-To-Video Adaptations, Lyndsay Michalik

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Processes of creative adaptation no longer fit traditional, culturally sanctioned forms, like commercial book-to-film adaptation, or vice versa. Meanwhile, internet users are demonstrating how noncommercial, creative text adaptation using video technology has become an everyday art form, a skill set, a form of communication, and a means of cultural commentary. Internet video adapters physically perform in their own videos and they create videos that work performatively online. Negotiating the slippery spaces between copyright, creativity, and cultural commentary, these creators adapt videos in myriad ways, and find spaces to share their adaptations online, despite (for most) a lack of financial return …

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Flesh, Blood, And Puffed-Up Livers: The Theological, Political, And Social Contexts Behind The 1550-1551 Written Eucharistic Debate Between Thomas Cranmer And Stephen Gardiner, Amanda Wrenn Allen Jan 2014

Flesh, Blood, And Puffed-Up Livers: The Theological, Political, And Social Contexts Behind The 1550-1551 Written Eucharistic Debate Between Thomas Cranmer And Stephen Gardiner, Amanda Wrenn Allen

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In 1550 Thomas Cranmer wrote A Defence of the True and Catholike Doctrine of the body and bloud of our saviour Christ. This theological work sparked a written debate between him and leading English traditionalist Stephen Gardiner in 1551. This dissertation outlines the differences between Cranmer’s newly asserted Reformed understanding of a Spiritual Presence in the Eucharist and Gardiner’s traditional doctrine of Real Presence, more commonly termed transubstantiation. The dissertation analyzes the three-book exchange between these bishops and explains how each uses the same Scripture, writings of the early Church Fathers, and contemporary Continental Reformers to establish their very different …

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The Dog Ate My Homework: A Qualitative Study Of Students' Views Of Their Homework Experiences, Elizabeth Yvette Stogner Jan 2014

The Dog Ate My Homework: A Qualitative Study Of Students' Views Of Their Homework Experiences, Elizabeth Yvette Stogner

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Students’ voices are underrepresented in the professional literature and public conversations regarding homework; therefore, this study was designed to include students’ voices in future conversations. This study examined the responses of ten high school students enrolled in an eleventh grade English Language and Composition Advanced Placement (AP) class at a rural public school. The findings of this study answer the research questions: 1. What are students’ experiences with homework? 2. In what ways have these experiences shaped students’ views of homework? Over a period of 16 weeks, the researcher gathered qualitative data via students’ responses to essay writing, a questionnaire, …

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Synthesis And Characterization Of Novel Polyester Scaffolds From Sugarcane Industry By-Products For Use In Skin And Bone Tissue Engineering, Akanksha Kanitkar Jan 2014

Synthesis And Characterization Of Novel Polyester Scaffolds From Sugarcane Industry By-Products For Use In Skin And Bone Tissue Engineering, Akanksha Kanitkar

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The aim of this work was to synthesize non-toxic, biodegradable polyesters of aconitic acid, cinnamic acid and glycerol from by-products of the sugarcane industry as scaffolds for skin and bone tissue engineering. Utilizing the by-products, molasses and sugarcane bagasse, not only add value to the cane industry, but also paves path for synthesizing novel bio-based materials from the isolated specialty chemicals. Molasses contain an economically recoverable quantity of aconitic acid and its extraction was studied in detail as a part of this work. The yields of recovered aconitic acid varied from 25–69% depending on the extraction conditions. Under all the …

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The Birth Of A Drone Nation: American Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Since 1917, Garrett Dale Mckinnon Jan 2014

The Birth Of A Drone Nation: American Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Since 1917, Garrett Dale Mckinnon

LSU Master's Theses

Drones have entered American consciousness and society. Little attention, however, has been paid to how America got here, how it became a drone nation. This thesis seeks to counter the “New Drone” misconception, the general ignorance of drone history present in the historiography, and popular perception of the subject. Chapter one, “The “New Drone” Misconception: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in the World Wars,” examines America’s first experiments with military drones. Charles Kettering, “Hap” Arnold, and Reginald Denny were among the first to recognize UAV potential and garner American support. The main motivation for drone use--removing American soldiers from danger--was first recognized …

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The Influence Of Selected Factors On The Science Achievement Of Eighth Grade Students In Louisiana, John Dana Gaspard Jan 2014

The Influence Of Selected Factors On The Science Achievement Of Eighth Grade Students In Louisiana, John Dana Gaspard

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study is to determine the influence of selected demographic and academic factors on the science achievement among middle school students in Louisiana. The dependent variable for this study was Science achievement as measured by the Eighth Grade LEAP Test. The independent variables consisted of selected demographic characteristics and student scores on the ELA, Reading, Mathematics, and Social Studies sections of the Eighth Grade LEAP Test and their subtests. The target population of this study was Eighth Grade students in the public schools of Louisiana who were required to successfully complete the LEAP test in order …

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The Visual Novel: Fictional Space And Print After 1900, Michael James Griffin Ii Jan 2014

The Visual Novel: Fictional Space And Print After 1900, Michael James Griffin Ii

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation, The Visual Novel: Fictional Space and Print After 1900, examines how and why the novel has assimilated visual mediums—film, art, and the digital—into the genre as a means of adapting to the proliferation of mass media and technology. This project connects a history of the novel (genre) with a history of the book (the genre’s physical form), thereby theorizing and narrating a history of the visual novel. I demonstrate that through fictional space, a critical term used by narratologists and textual studies scholars, visual writing emerges as a hybridized mode of creative composition where we can see most …

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Subjugated Territory: The New Afrikan Independence Movement And The Space Of Black Power, Paul Karolczyk Jan 2014

Subjugated Territory: The New Afrikan Independence Movement And The Space Of Black Power, Paul Karolczyk

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I study the black revolutionary nationalist geography of the New Afrikan Independence Movement (NAIM) and the anti-racist space of Black Power. I adapt social theorist Henri Lefebvre’s concept of representational space to show how New Afrikan revolutionary nationalism intersects with space, place, and scalar politics in a representational space of black radicalism that confounds dominant notions of race, cultural identity, and national belonging in the United States. NAIM originated in 1968 when several-hundred black nationalist delegates met at the National Black Government conference in Detroit to create the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika. New …

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Raptivism: The Act Of Hip Hop’S Counterpublic Sphere Forming Into A Social Movement To Seize Its Political Opportunities, Matthew C. Maddex Jan 2014

Raptivism: The Act Of Hip Hop’S Counterpublic Sphere Forming Into A Social Movement To Seize Its Political Opportunities, Matthew C. Maddex

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study explores recent attempts by the hip hop community to be recognized in the mainstream political sphere and to have its concerns acknowledged and addressed. This project examines how the scholarship of hip hop (musicology), rhetoric (counterpublic spheres), politics and social movement theory intertwine, and to demonstrate how hip hop’s community can emerge as a counterpublic sphere that could become a social movement capable of altering the current cultural and political landscape in the United States. Although hip hop as a culture consists of four major elements: breakdancing, graffiti art, deejaying, and rapping, this study focuses on rappers and …

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Infusion Of Gerontological Competencies In Social Work, Jessica Marie Rawls Jan 2014

Infusion Of Gerontological Competencies In Social Work, Jessica Marie Rawls

LSU Master's Theses

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Graduate Certificate in Gerontology Program (GCGP) at Louisiana State University School of Social Work (LSUSSW). Thirty advanced year students participating in the GCGP in the 2012-2013 academic year participated in the study. All of the participants were female, and the majority (n=25) identified as Caucasian. The mean age of the participants was twenty-seven years. The study utilized a pre-experimental, one group pretest-posttest design. Participants were surveyed pre-certificate program and upon completion of the program using a two-part, self-report survey which utilized the Geriatric Social Work Competency Scale II. Participants reported their …

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A Comparison Of Calcium And Magnesium Ratios In Soilless Media For Optimum Vegetable Production Irrigated With Alkaline Ph Water, Sarah E. Bertrand Jan 2014

A Comparison Of Calcium And Magnesium Ratios In Soilless Media For Optimum Vegetable Production Irrigated With Alkaline Ph Water, Sarah E. Bertrand

LSU Master's Theses

Home gardeners in areas with alkaline water sources do not have means of acidifying water for vegetable production. A solution to achieving optimal yields with alkaline irrigation water is to use specialized media; however, current media available does not meet these needs. New media recipes with varied levels (0 to 8 lbs/yd3) and sources of Ca (dolomitic lime, calcium sulfate) and Mg (dolomitic lime, magnesium sulfate) were tested using alkaline irrigation on lettuce, cabbage, and cauliflower crops under high tunnel and on nursery yard sites. Media treatments with an 80:20 bark:peat and 7.1 kg/m3 slow release 15-9-11 base mix and …

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Teacher Matters: Teacher Normative Influence And Student Persistence In College, Jonathan Paul Denham Jan 2014

Teacher Matters: Teacher Normative Influence And Student Persistence In College, Jonathan Paul Denham

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation extends the work on teacher immediacy (TI) and student persistence by using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) (Ajzen, 1985) to account for variability in college student persistence. Students provided perceptions of their teachers’ immediacy behaviors using modified versions of Gorham’s (1988) TI scale. Instruction prompts of the TI scale were manipulated to create four conditions. The results from Study 1 demonstrate that TI scale prompt language has an effect on the ways participants assess their teacher’s immediacy behaviors. The results from Study 2 show that student perceptions of their teacher’s immediacy behaviors change over the course of …

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Reducing Juvenile Justice Involvement Through A Childhood Truancy Intervention, Bret James Blackmon Jan 2014

Reducing Juvenile Justice Involvement Through A Childhood Truancy Intervention, Bret James Blackmon

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study employed a mixed methods design to evaluate an elementary school truancy intervention in terms of reducing rates of juvenile delinquency over six years. Few (n = 11) participants became involved in the formal justice system, so the intervention’s effectiveness was measured by re-referrals for continued truancy. The regression discontinuity design was used to compare the intervention group to the comparison group. The intervention group received intensive case management and the comparison group received a warning letter. A regression discontinuity design using multivariate logistic regression indicated that the intervention did not reduce the likelihood of subsequent re-referrals, and the …

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Lopsided, Scarred, And Squint-Eyed: Ugly Women In The Work Of Southern Women Writers, Monica C. Miller Jan 2014

Lopsided, Scarred, And Squint-Eyed: Ugly Women In The Work Of Southern Women Writers, Monica C. Miller

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The ubiquity of ugly female characters in the work of southern women calls into question what W. J. Cash termed “gyneolatry,” the worship of the beautiful white woman upon which so much of southern ideology has been based. If the South functions as an internal other for the nation, then examining this fiction’s multiplicity of ugly women illuminates the ways in which women defy not only the norms of southern gender but also those of the larger American culture, in which the southern woman often acts as a representation of the South in general. By considering ugliness as a category …

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Three Readings Of The Eternal Return, Michael James Maclaggan Jan 2014

Three Readings Of The Eternal Return, Michael James Maclaggan

LSU Master's Theses

I argue that Deleuze’s “onto-ethical” reading of Nietzsche’s doctrine of the eternal return of difference in Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962) is necessarily the correct reading. The doctrine of recurrence basically says that flux or change is our “at base” perceptual experience. From the philosophical and actual position of chaos, our lived experience is of percepts repeating mutable patterns. Deleuze’s insight (1962): the lived experience of change re-produces, from madness, a decision-making principle, namely, the principle of the return of difference. Simply stated, the principle of difference is the endogenous rule for discerning percepts as change. Habitual change is the only …

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Danger Shelter Opportunity: The Coastal Fortifications Of Nineteenth Century Louisiana, James F. Osborne, Iv Jan 2014

Danger Shelter Opportunity: The Coastal Fortifications Of Nineteenth Century Louisiana, James F. Osborne, Iv

LSU Master's Theses

This document seeks to establish a contemporary record of the nineteenth-century masonry fortifications of the Third System whose continued existence in Southeastern Louisiana is in peril. Designed and implemented in the years following the invasion of Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812 by Napoleon Bonaparte’s chief engineer, Louisiana’s coastal forts represent the pinnacle of European, pre-modern-warfare military architecture. With their obsolescence secured by advances in technology in the mid to late nineteenth century, each was abandoned or decommissioned following the American Civil War. These historic constructed spaces that are each uniquely adapted to the land they occupy have never …

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On The Governance Of Innovation: Institutional Ownership Vs. Stock Price, Huong Thi Thu Le Jan 2014

On The Governance Of Innovation: Institutional Ownership Vs. Stock Price, Huong Thi Thu Le

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Firms can change their outstanding shares to manage their stock price levels. Those with lower stock prices tend to attract more speculative trading, which causes higher price volatility and may force their managers to excessively focus on short-term earnings at the expense of R&D and other long-term projects. Thus, I hypothesize that keeping high stock price levels allows firms to (i) limit speculative traders’ influences on stock prices and thus mitigate investor short-termism, and (ii) enhance R&D productivity. Indeed, I find that high-priced firms are less likely to cut R&D to reverse an earnings decline, less likely to fire their …

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Militant Feminism And The Women Of The Weather Underground Organization, Mona Cristina Rocha Jan 2014

Militant Feminism And The Women Of The Weather Underground Organization, Mona Cristina Rocha

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Militant feminism is characterized by two positions. First, the militant feminist believes that where the use of violence is justified, it is just as justified when performed by women as by men. Second, militant feminists hold that militant action can be justified in the pursuit of aims consistent with feminist values. Shortly after the emergence of second-wave feminism in the mid-1960’s, there is a surge of militant feminists among radical leftist organizations, such as the Weather Underground Organization. Second-wave feminists articulated a view of womanhood that was not confined to the home; militant feminists, such as those of the Weather …

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Teaching Strategies For Proof Based Geometry, Kristina Marie Chaves Jan 2014

Teaching Strategies For Proof Based Geometry, Kristina Marie Chaves

LSU Master's Theses

This study aims is to discover the best methods for geometry students to master proof writing. Students who are taught how to write proofs in a traditional setting find proofs to be very difficult - struggling throughout the school year writing proofs on their own. Studies have been conducted regarding the use of dynamic geometry software in proof writing. To further study the effects of proof writing using dynamic geometry software, forty-eight freshmen students enrolled in an honors geometry course at a high performing suburban high school in Louisiana were given several proofs to complete, along with self-reflection surveys. During …

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Resiliency And Selfless Service Development In Army Rotc Physical Training: A Qualitative Investigation, Molly Voelz Fischer Jan 2014

Resiliency And Selfless Service Development In Army Rotc Physical Training: A Qualitative Investigation, Molly Voelz Fischer

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Leadership in the United States Army is essential for successful completion of domestic and international missions. Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs are used to effectively develop leadership skills within the Army. Physical training (PT) is a mandatory component in ROTC, used to improve physical ability and prepare cadets for the rigors of the “big Army” environment. Resiliency and selfless service development are seen as critical elements of leadership, yet little is known about the formal and informal experiences in ROTC PT that facilitate or hinder resiliency and selfless service during early career preparation. The overall purpose of this dissertation …

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Body Language: Pain In Victorian Literature, Laura Jane Faulk Jan 2014

Body Language: Pain In Victorian Literature, Laura Jane Faulk

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

“Body Language: Pain in Victorian Literature” argues that Victorian authors use the readable sign system of the body and pain to emphasize their characters’ physical features to the reader. As characters physically manifest emotions or experience violence, their appearances change, and these differences depend on physical descriptions. Marks on the body give it texture and depth, creating a layering that encourages the reader to envision and remember it. Character interactions, particularly when they read others’ somatic signs and experience or cause brutality, further flesh out characters, emphasizing their physical presences in the reader’s mind. The somatic sign system depends upon …

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Sexual Assault And The Meaning Of Power And Authority For Women With Mental Disabilities, Janine Benedet, Isabel Grant Jan 2014

Sexual Assault And The Meaning Of Power And Authority For Women With Mental Disabilities, Janine Benedet, Isabel Grant

All Faculty Publications

The sexual assault of persons with mental disabilities (also described as cognitive, intellectual and developmental disabilities) occurs at alarmingly high rates worldwide. These assaults are a form of gender-based violence intersecting with discrimination based on disability. Our research on the treatment of such cases in the Canadian criminal justice system demonstrates the systemic barriers these victims face at the level of both substantive legal doctrine and trial procedure. Relying on feminist legal theory and disability theory, we argue in this paper that abuses of trust and power underlie most sexual assaults of women with mental disabilities. We argue that existing …

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Built Environment And Risk Of Obesity In The United States: A Multilevel Modeling Approach, Yanqing Xu Jan 2014

Built Environment And Risk Of Obesity In The United States: A Multilevel Modeling Approach, Yanqing Xu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation provides a series of exploratory analyses of the relationship between built environment and obesity by using multiple data sets and employing the state-of-art Geographic Information Systems methods. Several built environment factors including street connectivity, walkability and food environment, are for the first time measured across 48 contiguous states of the U.S., built from a fine geographic scale such as the census tract level. Based on the nationwide BRFSS data, the first study used the Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) model to analyze the obesity rates at the county level. The model results reveal that overall obesity rates are negatively …

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Pragmatics, Prosody, And Social Skills Of School-Age Children With Language-Learning Differences, Janet Lynn Bradshaw Jan 2014

Pragmatics, Prosody, And Social Skills Of School-Age Children With Language-Learning Differences, Janet Lynn Bradshaw

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Social skills are an important aspect of child development that continues to have influences in adolescence and adulthood (Hart, Olsen, Robinson, & Mandleco, 1997). Interacting in a social world requires an integration of many abilities that include social skills and emotional understanding of oneself and other persons. Children who have difficulties with interpreting social cues (e.g., identifying basic emotions and responding to cues in speech) have immediate and progressive consequences in both academics and social living. Children with typical language skills are successfully interacting with peers and acknowledging social rules for different environments (e.g., playing at school vs. playing at …

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Evaluating The Effects Of Dialect On Kindergartners' Use Of Three Grammatical Structures In Narratives, Andromeda Patrice Love Jan 2014

Evaluating The Effects Of Dialect On Kindergartners' Use Of Three Grammatical Structures In Narratives, Andromeda Patrice Love

LSU Master's Theses

The aim of this study was to determine if dialect status has an effect on the frequency at which kindergarteners produce nonmainstream English markings for regular third person, IS and ARE, and regular past tense when producing oral narratives. Specifically, I wished to determine if child speakers of African American English (AAE) and child speakers of Southern White English (SWE) mark these structures with nonmainstream English forms at different rates. The narrative data came from language samples that had been previously collected from twenty kindergarten speakers of AAE and twenty kindergarten speakers of SWE. All of the children were recruited …

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The Man Behind The Curtain: Who Is This Covenant Theologian? - Chapter 1 From "Covenant-Making: The Fabric Of Relationship", Marykate Morse Jan 2014

The Man Behind The Curtain: Who Is This Covenant Theologian? - Chapter 1 From "Covenant-Making: The Fabric Of Relationship", Marykate Morse

Faculty Publications - Portland Seminary

No abstract provided.

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How To Make America Walkable, Michael Lewyn Jan 2014

How To Make America Walkable, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Review of Walkable City, by Jeff Speck

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Building Interfaith Bridges: Dirce And Nohad Toulan's Contribution To Interfaith Dialogue, Mark Rosenbaum Jan 2014

Building Interfaith Bridges: Dirce And Nohad Toulan's Contribution To Interfaith Dialogue, Mark Rosenbaum

Metroscape

In early January, 2014, the Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies brought together key leaders of Portland's faith community to remember Nohad and Dirce Toulan's contribution to interfaith dialogue. A conversation with Rabbi Daniel Isaak, Sister Mollie Reavis, and Imam Mikal Shabazz, moderated by Mark Rosenbaum.

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