Digital Commons Network^™

Poverty And The Challenge Of Quality Primary And Secondary School Education Access In Mara-Tanzania, Agnes Bhoke-Africanus

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although poverty draws global deliberations, still it continues to be a complicated parable, driving people to the scarceness of opportunities, resources and capability deprivation as a result of education limitation–leading to ignorance decease, again poverty, and its consequences. As I write, education has been promoted in Tanzania, and more children have access to education than ever, and yet, it doesn't warrant that children have a fair access to quality education. The marginalized children, including children from poor families, orphans, children with disabilities, street children, and nomadic children hang on struggling to access quality education.

The goal of this study was …

Just Throw It In The Pot! The Cultural Geography Of Hidden Landscapes And Masked Performances In South Louisiana Gumbo Cooking, Corey David Hotard

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

One of Louisiana's gifts to the world is gumbo. Yet, gumbo is not just a local dish of renown. It is a metaphor which describes the people, a food that represents a region, and a symbol that stands in for the state. It is also the official dish of Louisiana. The association of gumbo with South Louisiana is recognized worldwide. The word itself evokes images of Louisiana's swampy Cajun landscapes. Yet gumbo is not indigenous to Louisiana nor is it a strictly Cajun dish. This dissertation is about the cultural and historical geography of gumbo. This study delves into the …

Coupled Gradient Enhanced Damage - Viscoplasticity Model Using Phase Field Method, Navid Mozaffari

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The aim of this dissertation is developing a framework to describe damage evolution as a phase transformation in solid materials and couple it to the well-known Perzyna type viscoplastic model to account for inelastic behavior of ductile materials. To accomplish this task, the following steps have been performed. First, a new nonlocal, gradient based damage model is proposed for isotropic elastic damage using the phase field method in order to show the evolution of damage in brittle materials. The general framework of the phase field model (PFM) is discussed and the order parameter is related to the damage variable in …

I. Synthesis Of Ascarosides For Chemical Biology Studies In Caenorhabditis Elegans, Ii. A Photochemical Approach To Delavayine, And Iii. Remote Hydroxylation By Radical Translocation And Polar Crossover, Kyle Allen Hollister

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The foci of this dissertation are the synthesis of analogs for chemical biology studies, synthetic chemistry method development (with an emphasis on photochemistry), and the application of these methods toward total synthesis. Chapter 1 outlines the synthesis of an array of pheromone analogs that are derivatives of the dideoxy sugar ascarylose. Referred to as ascarosides, such compounds have recently been shown to influence important biological processes in the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans. C. elegans secretes ascarosides into its environment, where the compounds then act as signaling molecules by providing information on factors like population density. Chapter 2 describes the biological …

Development Of Satellite-Assisted Forecasting System For Oyster Norovirus Outbreaks, Jiao Wang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Norovirus outbreaks can cause the closure of oyster harvesting waters and acute gastroenteritis in humans associated with consumption of contaminated raw oysters. The overall goal of this study was to develop a satellite-assisted forecasting system for oyster norovirus outbreaks. The forecasting system is comprised of three components: (1) satellite algorithms for retrieval of environmental variables, including salinity, temperature, and gage height, (2) an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based model, called NORF model, for predicting relative risk levels of oyster norovirus outbreaks, and (3) a mapping method for visualizing spatial distributions of norovirus outbreak risks in oyster harvest areas along Louisiana …

Nanoscale Gumbos: Size-Control, Characterization, And Applications As Enantioselective Molecularly Imprinted Polymers And Fluorescent Materials, Suzana Hamdan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Nanomaterials derived from a group of uniform materials based on organic salts (GUMBOS) have been introduced into the scientific literature through many analytical, biological, and technological applications. These nanomaterials, referred to as nanoGUMBOS, have been shown to display a number of interesting properties including fluorescence, magnetism, tumor targeting, and optoelectronic properties. Herein, we present major studies on nanoGUMBOS including synthesis and size-control, chiral molecular imprinting in polymers, as well as investigation of optical properties and quantum yield of fluorescent semiconductor-based nanoGUMBOS. Various strategies were introduced for production of well-defined nanoGUMBOS. Specifically, several methods based on sonochemistry, microwave, cyclodextrin, and surfactant-assisted …

Analysis Of Nonlinear Dispersive Model Equations, Jacob Grey

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this work we begin with a brief survey of the classical fluid dynamics problem of water waves, and then proceed to derive well known evolution equations via a Hamiltonian Variational approach. This method was first introduced in the seminal work of Walter Craig, et al. \cite{CG}. The distinguishing feature of this scheme is that the Dirichlet-Neumann operator of the fluid domain appears explicitly in the Hamiltonian. In the second and third chapters, we utilize the Hamiltonian perturbation theory introduced in \cite{CG} to derive the Benjamin-Bona-Mahony (BBM) and Benjamin-Bona-Mahony-Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (BBM-KP)equations. Finally, we briefly review the existence theory for their corresponding …

Investigations Into Ecogeomorphodynamics Of Coastal Embryo Dunes At Padre Island National Seashore, Texas, Katherine Anne Renken

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is an investigation into the interplay between vegetation and aeolian processes in the coastal embryo dune environment at Padre Island National Seashore, Texas. Vegetation is a geomorphic agent, altering aeolian process dynamics. This research adopted a three-pronged approach to improving our understanding of ecogeomorphodynamics in the coastal environment. The first study analyzed large-scale spatiotemporal trends in the vegetation community of the embryo dune environment in order to contextualize smaller scale aeolian processes. Results of this study demonstrated that there was a clear transition in community assemblage from the seaward edge of the embryo dune zone, where species functioned …

Towards The Realization Of Systematic, Self-Consistent Typical Medium Theory For Interacting Disordered Systems, Chinedu Ekuma Ekuma

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This work is devoted to the development of a systematic method for studying electron localization. The developed method is Typical Medium Dynamical Cluster Approximation (TMDCA) using the Anderson-Hubbard model. The TMDCA incorporates non-local correlations beyond the local typical environment in a self-consistent way utilizing the momentum resolved typical-density-of-states and the non-local hybridization function to characterize the localization transition. For the (non-interacting) Anderson model, I show that the TMDCA provides a proper description of the Anderson localization transition in one, two, and three dimensions. In three-dimensions, as a function of cluster size, the TMDCA systematically recovers the re-entrance behavior of the …

A Performer's Guide To Sergei Lyapunov's Concerto For Piano And Orchestra No.1, Op.4, Irina Cunev

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This document is intended to contribute to the ongoing study of Sergei Lyapunov’s work by focusing on his First Piano Concerto, a brilliant work that was once highly esteemed, but which has been unjustly neglected over the years. The main purposes of this study and the accompanying public lecture-recital are threefold: 1) to provide a historical background and to discuss major music trends that shaped Lyapunov’s style, along with biographical information about the composer’s life, 2) to provide a specific descriptive analysis of key stylistic elements utilized in the concerto and 3) to provide a detailed discussion of pianistic techniques …

Chemical Structure And Dynamics In Laminar Flame Propagation, Mohsen Ayoobi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The objective of this dissertation is to investigate fundamental aspects of premixed flame structures as well as flame dynamics that arise due to conjugate heat transfer in narrow channels. Laminar premixed combustion simulations in narrow 2D channels show that conjugate heat transfer allows for combustion of mixtures at small scales that are not flammable at normal conditions. To investigate the impact of conjugate heat transfer, preheated 1D cases with premixed H2/Air fuel are simulated for a wide range of operating conditions based on inlet temperature and equivalence ratio. For post-processing, Chemical Explosive Mode Analysis (CEMA, an eigen-analysis technique) is used …

Constitutive Modeling And Experiments For The Micro And Nano Behaviors In Metals, Cheng Zhang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This work addresses the micro- and nano-behaviors in metals through constitutive modeling and experiments. The size effect encountered during nanoindentation experiments, which is known as indentation size effect (ISE), is investigated for metal materials. The ISE is believed to be related with the strain gradient at small indentation depths. Geometrically necessary dislocations (GNDs) are formed in order to accommodate the strain gradient, which results in the increase in the material hardness. The grain boundaries in polycrystalline materials play an important role on the material hardness during nanoindentation experiments as there is a soften-hardening segment in the curve of hardness as …

Fermentable Non-Digestible Dietary Fiber And Bioactive Compounds Affect Aging And Fat Deposition In Caenorhabditis Elegans, Chenfei Gao

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Overweight and obesity have been imposing $147 billion a year to the health care system in the United States. Limited medications are available in the market with side effects. Surgical treatments are second-line obesity treatments. Short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) produced from the fermentable resistant starch improves the secretion of satiety hormones peptide YY (PYY) and glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) from L-endocrine cells of cecum and colon. We hypothesized that consumption of fermentable non-digestible dietary fiber and bioactive compounds will increase insulin sensitivity, reduce body fat, and improve healthspan in Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), and hyperglycemia (2% glucose) that may …

The Moderating Effects Of Family Management Factors On The Relationship Between Violence Exposure And Aggression, Christine Marie Raines

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Community violence, in the form of direct victimization or witnessing violent acts, is a prevalent public safety concern in many communities. Individuals who are exposed to community violence often exhibit a variety of associated mental health concerns, including anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress symptoms. One of the most common negative outcomes associated with violence exposure among adolescents is engaging in aggressive or violent behavior. In order to mitigate the health, safety, and legal consequences associated with this outcome, it is worth examining factors that may protect adolescents from exhibiting behavior problems subsequent to community violence exposure. In the present study, …

An Ontological (Re)Thinking: Ubuntu And Buddhism In Higher Education, David Wayne Robinson-Morris

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Institutions of higher education, the nation’s ideological filters, shape our world and our very being-in-the-world. Given the current anthro-cultural state of affairs around the globe, this investigation posits institutions of higher education’s complicity in the proliferation of societal dis-ease and its responsibility in assisting to recalibrate the global moral compass. Following these assertions this inquiry is focused on the other-than-ness of higher education, and re-imagines both humanity and higher education to be what it is not yet, but must become. More specifically, through Buddhism and Ubuntu, this investigation (re)thinks institutions of higher education as transformational educative environments of human becoming …

An Examination Of Factors That Contribute To Binge Eating Among Bariatric Patients, Erin Neuman-Boone

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Binge eating is the most common eating disorder among individuals presenting for bariatric surgery. The majority of patients with pre-surgical binge eating experience a short-term reduction in binge eating symptoms following surgery. However, binge eating symptoms can re-emerge. This quantitative study examined variables related to and predictive of binge eating within the bariatric patient population. Specifically, the purpose of this study was to determine whether daily hassles, uplifts, depression, pre-surgical binge eating, time since surgery, and weight regain were predictors of binge eating within the bariatric patient population. One hundred and twenty-six participants completed either an electronic or paper version …

How Motivational Interviewing Affects The Motivation, Self-Efficacy, And Outcome Expectancies Of Adjudicated Adolescents In A School Setting, Sarah Paret Rabkin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Unfortunately, substance use is prevalent among adolescents. Data from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) shows that in 2009, 46.7% of 12th grade students reported that they had tried an illicit substance in their lifetime (NIDA, 2010). Substance use in adolescence is the strongest predictor of drug and alcohol disorders in adults. Albert Bandura's social cognitive theory suggests there is a reciprocal interaction between personal, environmental, and behavioral factors that contribute to substance use. This theory is also useful for identifying factors (e.g. motivation, self-efficacy, and outcome expectancies) that are central to behavior change.

Motivational Interviewing (MI) is an …

Keeping It Reel?: A Mixed Methods Content Analysis Of The Representation Of Black Male Students And Black Masculinity In College Films, Kevin Joseph

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this convergent parallel mixed methods study was to explore the representations of Black male students and Black masculinity in college films and identify what differences in representations exist when accounting for various characteristics of the films. In the qualitative component, a qualitative content analysis was utilized to analyze the representations in a sample of 18 theatrically released college films. In the quantitative component, a quantitative content analysis was performed to identify any existing differences in Black male student representations when accounting for the films’ genre, decade of release, and depicted institution type. Qualitative analyses revealed that, overall, …

A Performer's Guide To Ivor Gurney's The Western Playland (And Of Sorrow), Ridley Chauvin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this document is to serve as a performance guide for Ivor Gurney’s song cycle, The Western Playland (and of Sorrow), a song cycle for baritone, piano and string quartet, consisting of eight songs set to the poetry of A. E. Housman. Within this performance guide an analysis of each song and poem in The Western Playland (and of Sorrow) will be explored, along with performance recommendations for each of the eight songs. Given that there were relatively few composers writing works for string quartet, piano and solo voice during the years Ivor Gurney was composing, the author …

Facilitating Healthy Interpersonal Relationships For Adolescents With Autism: An Examination Of Knowledge Acquisition And Retention Over Time, Elizabeth Pask

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The study seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of the Healthy Relationships & Autism (HR) curriculum (Sutton & Wesley Spectrum Services, 2013), which is a developmentally sequenced, manualized treatment intended for children and adolescents with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The HR curriculum is designed to facilitate healthy interpersonal relationships in children and adolescents with ASD. Specifically, this study investigates the effectiveness of Module 2 of the curriculum, which focuses on teaching basic biological sex education, using well researched techniques designed to reach individuals with ASD. The paper elaborates on the history and development of the need to address these issues, …

"Superbly Sterile:" Queer Reproduction In Victorian Literature And Culture, Mary Timothy Wilson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Examining a broad range of texts,“‘Superbly Sterile:’ Queer Reproduction in Victorian Literature and Culture,” argues that Thomas Hardy’s final naturalist novels, popular nineteenth-century vampire narratives, and the fiction of Oscar Wilde queered the bildungsroman (or novel of development) through characters who failed or refused to progress along sexual and maturational timelines. Where these texts’ critics have tended to read them as cautionary tales about homosexuality or predatory female sexuality, this dissertation contends that they also presented alternate forms of kinship and reproduction. They do so through the use of recursive, inverted, or otherwise backward relationships to time. Where Victorian sexology …

The Lived Experiences Of International Counselor Education Students During Their Field-Based Clinical Supervision In The United States Of The Lived Experiences Of International Counselor Education Students During Their Field-Based Clinical Supervision In The United States Of America, Abeer Rasheed

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Supervision is an essential principle of the counseling field and a distinct intervention (Bernard & Goodyear, 2009). The primary goal of supervision is to provide counselor-in-training professionals with knowledge, support, and useful feedback; at the same time, it assures that attention is paid to the welfare of clients. Mandatory clinical supervision is a significant resource for counselors-in-training, and receiving supervision is considered essential to the professional development of master's-level students. Such is certainly the case for international students pursuing a master's degree in professional counseling. In the counseling field, however, the cultural differences that most often cause role ambiguity also …

Spinoza's Ethology: Recognizing Dynamic Transitions Between Imagination, Reason, And Intuition, Christina Rawls

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Seventeenth Century lens grinder and Dutch philosopher, Benedict de Spinoza, illuminates a rigorous and dynamic theory of knowledge and action in his major system the Ethics. What we learn by adequately learning Spinoza's epistemology is that within it is a proto-physics of ideational force between the three kinds of knowledge expressed by the attribute of thought and, simultaneously, expressed as ratios of motion and rest, speed and slowness, intensity and transformation by the attribute of extension. Such dynamic processes or ways lead to one's capacity for increased rational thought and action, increased uses of creativity, and the enhanced ability to …

Three Essays On Economic Analysis Of Production Systems Of U.S. Grass-Fed Beef Industry, Basu Deb Bhandari

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation research consists of three essays. The first two studies analyze experimental research data based on three pasture systems for grass-fed beef (GFB) production in the Gulf Coast Region. System 1 included bermudagrass and ryegrass; System 2 included bermudagrass, ryegrass, rye, dallisgrass, and clover mixtures (red, white, and berseem clovers); and System 3 included bermudagrass, soybean, sorghum sudan hybrid, ryegrass, rye, dallisgrass, and clover mixtures (red, white, and berseem clovers). Fifty-four Fall-born steers were weaned in May and grouped into nine groups and randomly blocked into treatments and replicates. Inputs and output data were recorded on a daily basis. …

The Relationship Between A Theological Understanding Of Marital Commitment And A Juridical Articulation Of Marital Consent In Sacramental Marriages In The United States, Angela Robb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sacramental marriage is an essential social, public, ecclesial, and theological good, yet its influence in the United States is threatened by a divorce rate comparable to the U.S. population in general, an explosive increase in cohabitation, and a declining marriage rate. The underlying assumption of this dissertation is that commitment and consent, more thoroughly understood and consistently lived, are essential to lifelong, faithful, and life-giving marriage that symbolizes and makes present Christ's indissoluble love for the church. Through an adapted use of Don Browning's fundamental practical theological method, this study begins with practical concerns regarding concrete marital and family practices …

Rényi Quantum Conditional Mutual Information And Parity Quantum Optical Metrology, Kaushik Parasuram Seshadreesan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This is a two-part thesis strung together by a common underlying theme—quantum correlations. We present some new characterizations and quantifications of quantum correlations and an application of one such correlation—entanglement—for quantum technology.

In Part I of the thesis, we use a Rényi generalization of the quantum conditional mutual information (QCMI) to define and study new measures of quantum entanglement and quantum discord. In particular, using a quantity derived from a Rényi QCMI, we introduce: a) the geometric squashed entanglement, a faithful entanglement measure, which is a lower bound on the squashed entanglement and which reduces to the geometric measure of …

After The Dust Settles: Experiences Of Haitian Earthquake Survivors And Implications For Psychosocial Support, Florence Saint-Jean

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 wide magnitude earthquake hit Haiti and thousands of Haitians were left to cope with the aftermath, and many mental health concerns began to surface (Amnesty International, 2011; Cénat & Derivois, 2014). The main purpose of this study is to understand post-earthquake psychosocial issues in the Haitian context by studying the experiences of Natives in Haiti. This study provides implications for counseling support from international emergency response workers, counselors, counselor educators interested in providing mental health training in Haiti or other developing countries, and researcher's interested in increasing knowledge that has real impact on mental …

Social Functioning In Schizotypy: An Exploration Of Communicative Effectiveness Through Speech Analysis And Observer Rated Performance In A Socially Demanding Task, Tracey Lauren Auster

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Individuals with schizotypal traits have demonstrated sub-clinical symptoms of psychosis (e.g. perceptual disturbances, self-reported social functioning impairment, self-reported memory problems, and delusions). However, the evidence has been mixed regarding what impairments exist, particularly with regards to social functioning domains. As schizotypy is posited to reflect an underlying vulnerability for development of clinical levels of psychosis/risk conversion, individuals with these traits are an important group to study in order to identify these vulnerabilities. Research has indicated that current measures of social functioning (whether they are localized objective measures of verbal and non-verbal communication or global self-report of functioning) are missing some …

Synthesis With Hypergraphs, Christopher Thomas Alvin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Many problems related to synthesis with intelligent tutoring may be phrased as program synthesis problems using AI-style search and formal reasoning techniques. The _x000C_first two results in this dissertation focus on problem synthesis as an aspect of intelligent tutoring systems applied to STEM-based education frameworks, specifically high school geometry. Given a geometric _x000C_figure as input, our technique constructs a hypergraph representing logical deduction of facts, and then traverses the hypergraph to synthesize problems and their corresponding solutions. Using similar techniques, our third result is focused on exhaustive synthesis of molecules. This synthesis process involves bonding sets of basic, molecular `fragments' …

Essays On Corruption, Chandan Kumar Jha

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Corruption is a global concern and requires attention because of its detrimental effects on economic growth and development. This dissertation includes three different essays that identify some of the instruments that can be used to fight corruption. The first essay investigates whether women's presence in economic and political arenas can have a significant impact on corruption. It finds evidence that while women's presence in parliament does reduce corruption other measures of female participation in economic activities are shown to have no effect. The second essay shows that internet and Facebook have an adverse effect on corruption. Finally, in a theoretical …