Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Digital Commons Network™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2015

Discipline
Institution
Keyword
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 48451 - 48480 of 49316

Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network

Evidence Of Pedagogical Content Knowledge Among High School Band Directors And University Applied Music Teachers In The Context Of Student Self-Evaluation, Danielle Jeanette Emerich Jan 2015

Evidence Of Pedagogical Content Knowledge Among High School Band Directors And University Applied Music Teachers In The Context Of Student Self-Evaluation, Danielle Jeanette Emerich

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was threefold: (a) to seek evidence of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in high school band directors’ (generalists) and applied music teachers’ (specialists) evaluations of musical performance; (b) explore the similarities and differences between generalists’ and specialists’ perspectives on PCK; and (c) compare the evidences of PCK to student musicians’ self-evaluations of same performances. A basic interpretive qualitative approach with data collected through a think-aloud procedure applied to evaluation of solo music performance videos revealed four themes indicative of PCK—Aural Concept, Conveying Information, Effecting Change, and Uncertainty—and attendant sub-themes. Generalists and specialists provided a rich trove …

Go to article

A Quantitative Study Using Constructist Learning Activities To Connect Biology Concepts To Local Environmental Issues In A Non-Major Introductory College Biology Course, Michaelyn Broussard Jan 2015

A Quantitative Study Using Constructist Learning Activities To Connect Biology Concepts To Local Environmental Issues In A Non-Major Introductory College Biology Course, Michaelyn Broussard

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Among the general population, there has continued to be a struggle to improve environmental literacy with the knowledge, attitude, and awareness of basic environmental issues locally and nationally. Despite efforts through many formal and informal programs, the result nationally has indicated little to no understanding of basic environmental issues (Coyle, 2005). Many educators such as Sobel (1996, 2004) and Louv (2005) have documented the lack of positive outdoor experiences or environmental behaviors. The purpose of this study was to incorporate local environmental examples through constructivist learning techniques within a general biology non-major course to promote an increase in environmental literacy …

Go to article

Multiscale Modeling Of Particle Transport In Petroleum Reservoirs, Layne Bryan French Jan 2015

Multiscale Modeling Of Particle Transport In Petroleum Reservoirs, Layne Bryan French

LSU Master's Theses

Modeling subsurface particle transport and retention is important for many processes, including sand production, fines migration, and nanoparticle injection. In this study, a pore-scale particle plugging simulator is concurrently coupled with a streamline reservoir simulator to predict the behavior of particles in the subsurface. The coupled simulators march forward in time together. The automated communication between the two models enables the prediction of spatially and time dependent parameters that control the particle transport process. At each time step, the reservoir simulator provides the inlet velocity and particle concentration of the fluid suspension to the pore-scale model which outputs the permeability, …

Go to article

In The Shadow Of Big Oil A Media Content Analysis Of The 'Big Oil' Stigma, Camille Nicole Ivy-O'Donnell Jan 2015

In The Shadow Of Big Oil A Media Content Analysis Of The 'Big Oil' Stigma, Camille Nicole Ivy-O'Donnell

LSU Master's Theses

This study examined media frames newspapers use in their coverage of the oil and gas industry. A content analysis was conducted to analyze if the oil and gas industry was portrayed positively or negatively in Louisiana newspapers compared to Texas newspapers and how the coverage between states differs. This comprehensive content analysis of print media coverage analyzed newspaper articles and provided a detailed explanation of results about how the oil and gas industry was portrayed over a five-year period of time as compared to other studies, which only analyzed the industry during a crisis period. Through categorization of the frames …

Go to article

Social Media Networks: The Social Influence Of Sentiment Content In Online Conversations On Dynamic Patterns Of Adoption And Diffusion, Tung Cu Jan 2015

Social Media Networks: The Social Influence Of Sentiment Content In Online Conversations On Dynamic Patterns Of Adoption And Diffusion, Tung Cu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The current study is focusing on diffusion and adoption of new digital artifacts. The goal is to explore the social role of user-generated content (UGC) during the diffusion process of digital artifacts in the context of online social networks. The study spans a wide range of analytics methods and tools such as predictive modeling, latent sentiment analysis, data retrieval, and other tools of time-series analysis & visualization. Data collection is conducted on 260 new digital products and more than 105 thousand social network nodes. Results of the study provide a deeper insight into the influence of textual UGC sentiment on …

Go to article

Site-Specific Habitat And Landscape Associations Of Rusty Blackbirds Wintering In Louisiana, Sinead Mary Borchert Jan 2015

Site-Specific Habitat And Landscape Associations Of Rusty Blackbirds Wintering In Louisiana, Sinead Mary Borchert

LSU Master's Theses

The Rusty Blackbird (Euphagus carolinus) has gained notoriety in recent years as one of the fastest declining North American bird species, with a global population loss of as much as 95%. Causes of the decline are not completely understood, but the high rate of forested wetland change in the southeastern United States suggests that wintering habitat degradation may be a primary driver. To better inform management on critical wintering grounds, I surveyed 68 sites in Louisiana where Rusty Blackbirds had been known to occur to address how occupancy changes with habitat type and colonization and extinction rates vary with ground …

Go to article

Expertise And Disbelief: Post-1945 American Attitudes Toward The Authority Of Knowledge, Terry Wagner Jan 2015

Expertise And Disbelief: Post-1945 American Attitudes Toward The Authority Of Knowledge, Terry Wagner

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

“You can’t beat brains,” said President John Kennedy of the intellectuals and technicians he assembled in his cabinet. Kennedy was perhaps the greatest political champion for the virtues of expertise. However, all over America during the 1960s and ‘70s, diverse groups voiced doubts about how much experts, such as social scientists, policy specialists, and others, actually improved life. This dissertation examines how movements on the political left and right, and spiritual ruptures such as the rise of ‘60s counterculture and of evangelicalism, spoke in different language to express a similar point: human mastery over the world is profoundly limited. Many …

Go to article

Correcting The Conversation: An Argument For A Public Health Perspective Approach To University Timely Warnings About Sexual Assault, Ashley Hesson Jan 2015

Correcting The Conversation: An Argument For A Public Health Perspective Approach To University Timely Warnings About Sexual Assault, Ashley Hesson

LSU Master's Theses

Reports of sexual violence should be written from a public health perspective approach to appropriately frame the occurrence and encourage accurate understandings of sexual assault as a larger societal issue. This research consists of two studies to investigate the way universities do (and should) communicate about sexual violence with their students. For Study 1, interviews were conducted with a random sample of public state Universities regarding their emergency alert processes and template usage to determine current emergency communication practices. The majority of universities contacted do not have a template or best practice guidelines in place for creating timely warnings. For …

Go to article

The Correlation Between Parental Involvement And Student Academic Achievement, Damien Ramon Antoine Jan 2015

The Correlation Between Parental Involvement And Student Academic Achievement, Damien Ramon Antoine

LSU Master's Theses

This study investigates whether or not there is a correlation between parental involvement and student academic achievement. A sample of 103 students at Madison Preparatory Academy and CSAL Middle School (CSAL, Inc) were tested for correlations between the degree with which their parents are engaged in their academic lives and the success that they achieve as a result. Small correlations were found to exist between some of the variables tested. The test group consisted of a group of high school students from Madison Preparatory Academy (MPA) and their siblings who attended CSAL Middle which is the feeder school for MPA. …

Go to article

A Science Education Study Using Visual Cognition And Eye Tracking To Explore Medication Selection In The Novice Versus Expert Nurse Anesthetist, Aimee Ladreyt Badeaux Jan 2015

A Science Education Study Using Visual Cognition And Eye Tracking To Explore Medication Selection In The Novice Versus Expert Nurse Anesthetist, Aimee Ladreyt Badeaux

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this science education study is to explore visual cognition and eye tracking during medication selection in the student nurse anesthetist (first year and second year students) and the expert nurse anesthetist. The first phase of this study consisted of the selection of a specific medication (target) from an array of medications via computer simulation. Various dependent variables were recorded to examine performance (reaction time and accuracy), and the allocation of visual attention was measured with eye tracking (dwell proportion, verification, and guidance). The second phase of this study included the administration of a demographic and post experiment …

Go to article

Evaluation Of Teacher Ratings To Improve Child Language Screenings In Speech-Language Pathology, Kyomi Dana Gregory Jan 2015

Evaluation Of Teacher Ratings To Improve Child Language Screenings In Speech-Language Pathology, Kyomi Dana Gregory

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of teacher ratings for screening children’s language skills. Teacher ratings were measured through the use of two tools, the Children’s Communication Checklist-2 (CCC-2; Bishop, 2006) and the Teacher Rating of Oral Language and Literacy (TROLL; Dickinson, McCabe, & Sprague, 2001). The data for this study were from 77 kindergarteners who lived in rural Louisiana and spoke a non-mainstream dialect of English; 51 were classified as typically developing and 26 as presenting with Specific Language Impairment. Convergent validity was examined by comparing the two teacher rating tools to each other and …

Go to article

How Local Nonprofit Organizations Can Use Narratives To Build Organizational-Public Relationships On Digital Media, Ryan Patrick Delaune Jan 2015

How Local Nonprofit Organizations Can Use Narratives To Build Organizational-Public Relationships On Digital Media, Ryan Patrick Delaune

LSU Master's Theses

The nonprofit sector’s adaptation and implementation of digital media is one that has received surprisingly little exploration. While some research has been conducted in this area, these studies tend to generalize results across all organization types within the nonprofit sector. Often, these studies overlook specific advantages nonprofits of varying types, sizes, and locations may potentially have in regard to fostering relationships with their communities. This study explores how these differences may impact organizational use of digital media, and how organizations can potentially use these media to more efficiently achieve their goals. Specifically, this study focuses on the use of narratives …

Go to article

Investigating Prehistoric Exchange In New Zealand: Portable Xrf And Spatial Analysis Of South Island Obsidian, Herman Nick Robles Jan 2015

Investigating Prehistoric Exchange In New Zealand: Portable Xrf And Spatial Analysis Of South Island Obsidian, Herman Nick Robles

LSU Master's Theses

The Otago Museum in Dunedin, New Zealand currently houses a collection of obsidian artifacts that were once in the possession of ancestral South Island Maori. Although the stone artifacts that reside in the Otago Museum are known to have been collected mostly in the South Island of the New Zealand archipelago, there is not much information as to where the ancestors of South Island Maori originally obtained the raw material to create the stone artifacts. Using portable x-ray florescence (XRF) analysis to non-destructively geochemically characterize the obsidian, a study was performed on the collection of stone artifacts to provide a …

Go to article

Engagement Across The Pond: The Nfl's Attempts To Increase Social Media Engagement Through The Cultural Targeting Of Messages, Isabelle Moore Jan 2015

Engagement Across The Pond: The Nfl's Attempts To Increase Social Media Engagement Through The Cultural Targeting Of Messages, Isabelle Moore

LSU Master's Theses

With more and more sports organizations reaching saturation points in their current home markets, the search for new, untapped, international audiences is on. Reaching out to these new markets has been made much more simple by the digitization of communication, and particularly the global spread of social media. The NFL, as the United States’ most popular sports league has been targeting the United Kingdom as it’s next market since the mid-2000s, and has gone as far as setting up a separate UK branch of their communications division (NFL UK). The NFL faces several challenges in engaging new fans in this …

Go to article

Fish Assemblage Structure, Distribution, And Trophic Ecology At Northwestern Gulf Of Mexico Banks, Todd Langland Jan 2015

Fish Assemblage Structure, Distribution, And Trophic Ecology At Northwestern Gulf Of Mexico Banks, Todd Langland

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The northwest Gulf of Mexico (Gulf) shelf-edge banks both provide unique hard bottom habitat and support the northernmost coral reefs on the North American continental shelf in a region that is generally characterized by low relief, soft sediments. The habitat value of many of these banks has led to their designation as Habitat Areas of Particular Concern (HAPC) and the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary (FGBNMS). However, little is known about the fisheries resources and dynamics of the banks outside the FGBNMS. This study had three main objectives: 1) define reef fish assemblages at northwestern Gulf shelf-edge banks and …

Go to article

Engagement Levels During Implementation Of Co-Teaching Models, Cathy Lee Eschete Jan 2015

Engagement Levels During Implementation Of Co-Teaching Models, Cathy Lee Eschete

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Student engagement in the classroom is a priority for educators and policy makers because disengaged students are more likely to perform poorly in school. Students with disabilities, particularly those with high-incidence disabilities, are a subset of that population of potentially disengaged and definitely poor-performing students. When attending school, they are served increasingly in inclusive, co-taught settings, allowing for inquiry into engagement practices in these instructional arrangements. One purpose of this study was document levels of student engagement for six commonly described co-teaching models implemented in a teacher education course for both special education and general education preservice teacher candidates and …

Go to article

Biogenesis And Redox Transition Of Iron-Sulfur Clusters In Proteins, Aaron Paul Landry Jan 2015

Biogenesis And Redox Transition Of Iron-Sulfur Clusters In Proteins, Aaron Paul Landry

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Iron-sulfur proteins comprise one of the most ubiquitous and conserved classes of proteins in biology. The diverse functions of iron-sulfur clusters in proteins range from electron transfer to redox signaling. The assembly of iron-sulfur clusters in cells requires a complex protein system and acquisition of sulfur and iron. While the sulfur source for iron-sulfur cluster assembly is well-established, the iron source remains elusive. The first part of this work provides new evidence for the hypothesis that the conserved iron-sulfur cluster assembly protein IscA may act as the iron donor for iron-sulfur cluster assembly. Iron-sulfur clusters in proteins are also vulnerable …

Go to article

Musical Explorations In Creation And Performance: A School's Alternative Approach To Music Education, Laterence Edward Varnado Jan 2015

Musical Explorations In Creation And Performance: A School's Alternative Approach To Music Education, Laterence Edward Varnado

LSU Master's Theses

Students have various opportunities to participate in school music. The large ensemble model that follows the Western Classical music tradition is the most commonly used model for music education in secondary schools; however, many students in secondary schools do not participate in school music. Recently, alternative approaches (i.e. popular music, world music, guitar, etc.) have been proposed as valuable music experiences that may increase student participation in school music. The aim of this study was to examine the philosophical foundations and pedagogical practices used at a secondary school that has implemented alternative approaches. I also explored student experiences with these …

Go to article

Application Of Computational Fluid Dynamics To Near-Wellbore Modeling Of A Gas Well, Oscar Mauricio Molina Jan 2015

Application Of Computational Fluid Dynamics To Near-Wellbore Modeling Of A Gas Well, Oscar Mauricio Molina

LSU Master's Theses

Well completion plays a key role in the economically viable production of hydrocarbons from a reservoir. Therefore, it is of high importance for the production engineer to have as many tools available that aid in the successful design of a proper completion scheme, depending on the type of formation rock, reservoir fluid properties and forecasting of production rates. Because well completion jobs are expensive, most of the completed wells are usually expected to produce as much hydrocarbon and as fast as possible, in order to shorten the time of return of the investment. This research study focused on the evaluation …

Go to article

Mishpacha In The American Diaspora: An Exploratory Study Of Highly-Involved Jewish Families, Trevan Glen Hatch Jan 2015

Mishpacha In The American Diaspora: An Exploratory Study Of Highly-Involved Jewish Families, Trevan Glen Hatch

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Both family and religion are important to a large majority of the population in the United States. In the last few decades, research on religious families has significantly increased. Empirical research on Jewish families, however, is scant. The purpose of this study is to explore contemporary American Jewish family life in relation to Judaism, both cultural and religious. Specifically, the two primary objectives of this study are 1) to examine how Jewish culture and religion may influence and shape Jewish family life; and 2) to examine how family relationships may influence observance of Jewish cultural or religious traditions. This reciprocal …

Go to article

Jean Cocteau: Orpheus Narcissus, Gordon Elliott Walker Jan 2015

Jean Cocteau: Orpheus Narcissus, Gordon Elliott Walker

LSU Master's Theses

Over the course of thirty years, the poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau created a singular artistic project he called the Orphic trilogy: Le Sang d’un poète (1930), Orphée (1950), and Le Testament d’Orphée (1959). This trilogy is marked by an Orphic pattern of a poet’s journey into an underworld to confront death. I will show that Cocteau’s invention is to have Orpheus be in love with death, for death to be an attractive and irresistible force to the poet. Simultaneously, Cocteau avails himself of the Narcissus myth, the man in love with his own reflection. Orpheus and Narcissus converge in …

Go to article

Sourcing And Framing Analysis Of Source Messages In The Coverage Of Armed Conflicts By American And British Foreign Reporters, Ellada Gamreklidze Jan 2015

Sourcing And Framing Analysis Of Source Messages In The Coverage Of Armed Conflicts By American And British Foreign Reporters, Ellada Gamreklidze

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation contributes to closing several gaps in mass communication scholarship as well as indicates new avenues for further research in the area of sourcing and framing. This study explored whether reliance on official sources in foreign reporting of international crises is as heavy as the hypothesis predicts, and, by studying messages delivered by official sources in this coverage, revealed how those messages were framed. The results showed that officials were dominant sources of information in all the three media outlets studied. The results also supported the argument that the same indexing mechanisms are at force in foreign reporting and …

Go to article

Defining Dad: Media Depiction Of The Modern Father In Print Advertising, John Robert Evans Jan 2015

Defining Dad: Media Depiction Of The Modern Father In Print Advertising, John Robert Evans

LSU Master's Theses

From an advertising perspective fathers are a highly attractive consumer demographic. In order to market to this audience it is important to understand how fathers are framed. With an increase in the number of fathers identifying themselves as caregivers according to the 2012 census, effective marketers would be well-served if they understood what type of frame applies when fathers are employed vs. stay at home. This analysis used framing theory to determine how message givers use frames within their advertisements to explain which particular aspects of the father are given salience. This study is a content analysis of father frames …

Go to article

Holocene Palynology Of The Gulf Of Papua, Papua New Guinea: Using Modern Palynomorph Distribution To Better Constrain Paleoenvironmental Changes, Marie Louise Thomas Jan 2015

Holocene Palynology Of The Gulf Of Papua, Papua New Guinea: Using Modern Palynomorph Distribution To Better Constrain Paleoenvironmental Changes, Marie Louise Thomas

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Multiple NSF (National Science Foundation)-funded MARGINS Source-to-Sink cruises were conducted in the Gulf of Papua (GoP), Papua New Guinea (PNG), from 2003 through 2005 to better understand how sediment is created, transported, and deposited. Although much work has been done on the data collected during these cruises, palynological analysis has never been conducted on the hundreds of available cores. The first phase of this project (Chapters 2 and 3) examines the connection between modern depositional regimes in the GoP and species assemblages recovered. Statistical analysis of palynomaceral assemblages (Chapter 2) indicates a correlation between their distribution and bathymetry, sedimentation rate, …

Go to article

The Use Of Geographic Information Systems And Ecological Niche Modeling To Map Transmission Risk For Visceral Leishmaniasis In Bahia, Brazil, Moara De Santana Martins Jan 2015

The Use Of Geographic Information Systems And Ecological Niche Modeling To Map Transmission Risk For Visceral Leishmaniasis In Bahia, Brazil, Moara De Santana Martins

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Leishmaniasis is a public health problem in Brazil, and despite the control programs in place, Bahia remains one of the states with the highest incidence rates of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) and visceral leishmaniasis (VL). This study proposed to develop and evaluate the applicability of ecological niche models (ENM) for leishmaniasis, to determine the influence of environmental and socioeconomic factors on the incidence of these diseases at three geographic scales: national, statewide and community. Water availability, garbage collection, precipitation and temperature were the most important variables in predicting areas suitable for VL and CL in the country. The extensive geography of …

Go to article

A Spatial Dynamic Model Of Population Changes In A Vulnerable Coastal Environment, Kenan Li Jan 2015

A Spatial Dynamic Model Of Population Changes In A Vulnerable Coastal Environment, Kenan Li

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Achieving coastal sustainability in low-lying coastal areas is a great challenge. This study developed a spatial dynamic model to study the coupled natural-human responses in the form of population changes in the Lower Mississippi River Basin region. The goal was to identify the key social-economic factors (utility) and selected environmental factors (such as hazards damage, elevation, and subsidence rate) that affect population changes, as well as how population changes affect the local utility and the local environment reciprocally. The study area was partitioned into the “north’ and the “south” by a hypothetical boundary to test the differences of the emergence. …

Go to article

Prisoner In The Darkness, Joseph Lee Morris Jan 2015

Prisoner In The Darkness, Joseph Lee Morris

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis details the writing process and performance of the author’s one man show, PRISONER IN THE DARKNESS. Adapted with special permission from Naghmeh Abedini, PRISONER IN THE DARKNESS is based on the letters, correspondences, and reports of Saeed Abedini, an American citizen, imprisoned in Iran. Pastor Saeed went back to his homeland to work on humanitarian efforts; however, he was wrongfully arrested and sent to Evin Prison in September 2012. In January 2013, Saeed was sentenced to eight years in prison for conspiring to undermine the Iranian government. His crime? His Christian faith. This thesis will explain the different …

Go to article

Design And Optimization Of Nanoplasmonic Waveguide Devices, Pouya Dastmalchi Jan 2015

Design And Optimization Of Nanoplasmonic Waveguide Devices, Pouya Dastmalchi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, we introduce compact absorption switches consisting of plasmonic metal-dielectric-metal (MDM) waveguides coupled to multisection cavities. The optimized multisection cavity switches lead to greatly enhanced modulation depth compared to optimized conventional Fabry-Perot cavity switches. We find that the modulation depth of the optimized multisection cavity switches is greatly enhanced compared to the optimized conventional Fabry-Perot cavity switches due to the great enhancement of the total electromagnetic field energy in the cavity region. We then investigate how to improve the computational efficiency of the design of nanoplasmonic devices. More specifically, we show that the space mapping algorithm, originally developed …

Go to article

“Princes Upon Stages”: The Theatricalization Of Monarchy In The Reign Of Elizabeth I, 1558-1569, Kimberly Reynolds Rush Jan 2015

“Princes Upon Stages”: The Theatricalization Of Monarchy In The Reign Of Elizabeth I, 1558-1569, Kimberly Reynolds Rush

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The reign of Elizabeth I of England is one of the most celebrated reigns in history and is renowned for the renaissance of the arts, theater, and culture. Authors, playwrights, and artists venerated her in their art in what became known as the Cult of Gloriana. At her accession, however, her position was far from secure. Many considered her illegitimate and she was a female entering a male-dominated world. In addition, Elizabeth inherited a religiously divided nation. In response to this, Elizabeth and her councilors initiated a propaganda campaign that created an image of Elizabeth as a wise, just, and …

Go to article

Work Readiness Among Graduate Students, Raymond Doe Jan 2015

Work Readiness Among Graduate Students, Raymond Doe

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study explored work readiness among graduate program completers at a Research University (RU/VH) in the Southeastern Region of the United States. Work readiness, although a relatively new construct, is defined as the level to which graduate students are perceived as possessing attitudes and attributes that enable them to be prepared for success in the workforce. Graduate degree-seeking students in universities and colleges are projected to surpass bachelor seeking students in the future. Hiring of graduate degree holders by organizations, however, play a major role in recruitment of new employees. Increasingly, organizations report that recent graduate program completers are insufficiently …

Go to article

First Prev Next Last