Digital Commons Network^™

Delaware Supreme Court Affirms Pleading-Stage Dismissal Of Control Stockholder Buyout Legislation, Robert S. Reder, Margaret Dodson

Vanderbilt Law Review

No abstract provided.

Vaccinations: Weighing The Risks And Benefits, Yosis Shapiro

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

Research has proven that vaccines prevent disease. Important medical organizations conclusively support and advise the administration of vaccinations to prevent diseases that once caused devastating effects both in the individual who contracted, and in communities where these diseases spread. While some groups protest against the constitutionality of vaccinating, others counter that failure to do so subjects the unvaccinated to illness and death by contracting and spreading of the sickness. Despite statistics on reduced incidence of diseases with few consequences as a result of vaccine-induced passive immunity, fears of harm secondary to vaccination loom. In the 21st Century, many people are …

Cognitive Effects Of Breastfeeding, Abraham Englard

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

This paper explores the cognitive effects of breastfeeding through Intelligence Testing and Imaging Testing that compares IQ, success, and brain structure of individuals that were breastfed, formula fed, and both breastfed and formula fed. Intelligence studies available are widespread for all age groups and signify a causal relationship between breastfeeding and intelligence. However, imaging testing is not as extensive, but shows a strong correlation between cognitive development and breastfeeding. The mechanism of breast milk’s impact on cognitive development is at an exploratory phase, with a possibility that docosahexaenoic and arachidonic acids, along with other nutrients found in breast milk, contribute …

Mechanism Of Fecal Bacteriotherapy In Treating Clostridium Difficile Infection And Gi Tract Disorders, Rivka Steinberg

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

Clostridium difficile infection, an increasingly prevalent and virulent condition, is often resistant to treatment. Standard antibiotic therapy is rarely efficient when used to treat recurrent C. difficile infection. Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is a safe, effective and inexpensive treatment that has a cure rate of about 90%, according to clinical trials and reports. This approach may also be applicable in treating ulcerative colitis, a type of inflammatory bowel disease, on the basis of the restoration of flora imbalances. Additionally, recent data suggests that a disproportion in composition of the gut microbiome may contribute to obesity. FMT, may restore a healthy …

Using Tourmaline As An Indicator Of Provenance: Development And Application Of A Statistical Approach Using Random Forests, Erin Lael Walden

LSU Master's Theses

Tourmaline is a petrologic indicator mineral that is the major repository of boron in the earth’s crust. It forms readily when boron is present, accommodating multiple cations and anions with multiple possible substitutions for each site in the crystal structure. It is stable over a wide variety of pressures and temperatures, from near-surface P/T conditions to greater than 950 C and 7 GPa. It records information about conditions of formation, as well as pressure and temperature. Due to its resistance to chemical or physical weathering, and the negligible diffusion of elements in the crystal lattice, information about provenance is preserved. …

Inmate Populations In A Disaster: A Labor Force, A Vulnerable Population, And A Hazard, Jordan Carlee Smith

LSU Master's Theses

Within the disaster literature, few studies have been devoted to the role of incarcerated populations as a source of labor within the context of emergency operations. When faced with a lack of resources, emergency management rely on inmate labor forces to prepare for and respond to hazards and disasters. In the U.S., inmates from the Louisiana State Penitentiary helped with sandbagging the facilities in preparing for the potentially flooding of the Mississippi River and Hurricane Katrina (Gaillard, 2012). The state of California has long maintained inmate firefighting forces to combat destructive wildfires statewide (Goodman, 2012). However, there has never been …

Transatlantic Trade And Investment Partnership: Implications To Global Wine Market, Natalia Antosova

LSU Master's Theses

Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership was first introduced in 2013, with the goal of liberalization of the trade and investments, better coordination of trade by specific regulations, enhancing intellectual property protection and lifting government’s impediments to trade. This Thesis is concerned on potential implications of the TTIP on the wine industry in the European Union and particular consequences related to EU wine producers. The literature review of this paper is developed with the purpose to bring general knowledge in the matter of the TTIP. In addition, linkages of the TTIP with the political economy are provided in the latter part …

Strategic Use Of Language In White House Twitter Communications, Margo L. Jolet

LSU Master's Theses

Lippmann (1922) theorized that we understand our world through elites and the media because we cannot experience everything ourselves. We look to others to share their experiences with us. In this way, the media and elites tell us what is important in our world. Converse (1964), Zaller (1992), and Lupia (1994) argue that not only do elites and the media help us see what is important, but they draw out attributes of these issues to help us make political determinations congruent with our belief systems. In this thesis, I conduced two studies investigating candidate, party, and White House tweets about …

Effects Of Truck Based Ultra-Low Volume Mosquito Adulticides On Honey Bees (Apis Mellifera) In A Real World Scenario, Vivek Pokhrel

LSU Master's Theses

Honey bees are crucial pollinators for many economically important fruit crops. The recent honey bee colony decline in the United States and other regions of the world has caused concern among commercial beekeepers, research groups, the government, and the general public. The role of pesticides in recent honey bee declines has not been fully determined. In Louisiana, it is a common practice to spray truck based ultra-low volume mosquito adulticides in Integrated Mosquito Management Programs to control mosquitoes and minimize the risk of vector borne viruses such as West Nile, chikungunya, and Zika. This study measured the effects of truck …

An Examination Of Autism Symptomatology In Young Children With Family History Of Autism Spectrum Disorder, Jasper Abarte Estabillo

LSU Master's Theses

Multiple genetic and environmental factors have roles in the etiology of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Thus, researchers have become increasingly interested in studying family members of individuals with ASD in order to examine possible risk factors and to identify early markers of the disorder. While family history of ASD may put an individual at risk for developing autism, there is limited research examining how the degree of relationship to the affected individual may be related to an individual’s presenting ASD symptomatology. Because closer familial relationships (i.e., first-degree relatives) have more shared genetic material and tend to have increased common environment …

The Effect Of Sericea Lespedeza (Lespedeza Cuneata) On Eimeria Spp. Infection In Broiler Chickens, Long Nghi Trinh

LSU Master's Theses

Parasites cause considerable economic losses in all fields of agriculture. In the poultry industry, coccidia infections are of major significance costing billions of dollars every year. Research on condensed tannins (CT) has been shown to be effective against various parasites such as gastrointestinal nematodes and Eimeria spp. in small ruminants. This study tested the effects of the CT containing forage, sericea lespedeza (SL), on broiler chickens infected with live Eimeria spp. oocysts. In Study 1, 300 Ross 708 broiler chicks were divided into 6 groups (negative control, positive control w/BioCox, 0% SL, 5% SL, 10% SL, 15% SL). In Study …

Gotta Catch 'Em All, Jennifer Lynn Lombardi

LSU Master's Theses

The ability to imagine is essential to shaping who we are, and is an important part of our humanity. Children have the ability to use aspects of their environment as their playthings, becoming the characters in their world through their sense of imagination. We lose this ability as we grow, leaving us with only memories and sentimentality. I have come to realize that my art is an expression of the longing and search to regain that ability to become fused with my imagination and my environment. I allow myself to become lost in a world of fantasy once more, and …

Applying Deep Learning Techniques To The Analysis Of Android Apks, Robin Andrew Nix

LSU Master's Theses

Malware targeting mobile devices is a pervasive problem in modern life and as such tools to detect and classify malware are of great value. This paper seeks to demonstrate the effectiveness of Deep Learning Techniques, specifically Convolutional Neural Networks, in detecting and classifying malware targeting the Android operating system. Unlike many current detection techniques, which require the use of relatively rigid features to aid in detection, deep neural networks are capable of automatically learning flexible features which may be more resilient to obfuscation. We present a parsing for extracting sequences of API calls which can be used to describe a …

A Verified Information-Flow Architecture, Arthur Azevedo De Amorim, Nathan Collins, André Dehon, Delphine Demange, Cătălin Hriţcu, David Pichardie, Benjamin C. Pierce, Randy Pollack, Andrew Tolmach

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

SAFE is a clean-slate design for a highly secure computer system, with pervasive mechanisms for tracking and limiting information flows. At the lowest level, the SAFE hardware supports fine-grained programmable tags, with efficient and flexible propagation and combination of tags as instructions are executed. The operating system virtualizes these generic facilities to present an information-flow abstract machine that allows user programs to label sensitive data with rich confidentiality policies. We present a formal, machine-checked model of the key hardware and software mechanisms used to dynamically control information flow in SAFE and an end-to-end proof of noninterference for this model. We …

Resident Perceptions Of Natural Resources Between Cities And Across Scales In The Pacific Northwest, Anita T. Morzillo, Betty J. Kreakie, Noelwah R. Netusil, J. Alan Yeakley

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

As the global population becomes increasingly urban, research is needed to explore how local culture, land use, and policy will influence urban natural resource management. We used a broad-scale comparative approach and survey of residents within the Portland (Oregon)-Vancouver (Washington) metropolitan areas, USA, two states with similar geographical and ecological characteristics, but different approaches to land-use planning, to explore resident perceptions about natural resources at three scales of analysis: property level (“at or near my house”), neighborhood (“within a 20-minute walk from my house”), and metro level (“across the metro area”). At the metro-level scale, nonmetric multidimensional scaling revealed that …

The Trouble With White Feminism: Whiteness, Digital Feminism And The Intersectional Internet, Jessie Daniels

Publications and Research

In August, 2013 Mikki Kendall, writer and pop culture analyst, started the hashtag #SolidarityisforWhiteWomen as a form of cyberfeminist activism directed at the predominantly white feminist activists and bloggers at sites like Feministing, Jezebel and Pandagon who failed to acknowledge the racist, sexist behavior of one their frequent contributors. Kendall’s hashtag activism quickly began trending and reignited a discussion about the trouble with white feminism. A number of journalists have excoriated Kendall specifically, and women of color more generally, for contributing to a “toxic” form of feminism. Yet what remains unquestioned in these journalistic accounts and in the scholarship to …

Working Memory And Interference Control In Children With Specific Language Impairment, Klara Marton, Naomi Eichorn, Luca Campanelli, Lilla Zakarias

Publications and Research

Language and communication disorders are often associated with deficits in working memory (WM) and interference control. WM studies involving children with specific language impairment (SLI) have traditionally been framed using either resource theories or decay accounts, particularly Baddeley's model. Although significant interference problems in children with SLI are apparent in error analysis data from WM and language tasks, interference theories and paradigms have not been widely used in the SLI literature. A primary goal of the present paper is to provide an overview of interference deficits in children with SLI. Review of the extant literature on interference control shows deficits …

Field Issue 3, Grant Kester

FIELD: A Journal of Socially-Engaged Art Criticism

From https://field-journal.com/, where you can also find current issues of FIELD:

"ISSN 2694-0094

We are living through a singular cultural moment in which the conventional relationship between art and the social world, and between artist and viewer, is being questioned and renegotiated. FIELD responds to the remarkable proliferation of new artistic practices devoted to forms of political, social and cultural transformation. Frequently collaborative in nature, this work is being produced by artists and art collectives throughout North, South and Central America, Europe, Africa and Asia. While otherwise quite diverse, it is driven by a common desire to establish new …

Collective Intervention: An Analysis Of The Political Issues Regarding Secession, Self-Determination, And Sovereignty In The Republic Of Kosovo, Benjamin Werthan

University Honors Theses

In 2008, the Republic of Kosovo, after years of war and internal conflicts between the ethnic Albanians and Serbians who lived in the territory, finally received status as an independent state. The process was long and even after declaring independence the Republic still had to fight for such recognition. This thesis explores that process, starting with the years prior to the Yugoslav Wars, through the Republic of Kosovo’s Declaration of Independence and the subsequent International Court of Justice advisory opinion. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the concepts of self-determination and state sovereignty with regard to the actions …

Binti: Daughter Of Arab America, Melika Valentine Belhaj

University Honors Theses

In a fifth grade class a television sits propped on a metal stand. On the screen, images of smoke billow from two tall towers, the clip of planes formerly crashing into them repeat over and over again. A young child sits in the back row of the room. She draws on her desk. War on Terror reads the banner at the bottom of the screen; words that do not describe the culture to which she belongs. She invites friends to her home for djej emshermel, stewed chicken with lemon and olives, for kefta made of ground lamb and tomato sauce, …

Who Matters?: Effective Classroom Management Strategies For Multicultural Elementary Education, Erica Bailey-Ramos

University Honors Theses

Current classroom management procedures, which are dominated by white affluent culture, are not conducive to effectively teaching the increasingly growing diverse school population. Differing backgrounds in a classroom are often viewed as deficits that teachers need to correct instead of individual strengths that add to the classroom knowledge. Currently, the public education system is making students conform to the school culture, instead of the school changing to reflect the community. Multicultural education is for all students, preparing them for the real world by teaching tolerance, acceptance, and learning through multiple perspectives. Current research agrees that a shift in management techniques …

Preventing Campus Sexual Assault: Evaluating Studies Of Male Offender Prevention Programs And Determining Best Practices, Cam Tu Tran

University Honors Theses

Campus sexual assault is becoming a highly publicized issue, with the U.S. White House recently releasing a report urging universities to improve prevention efforts through systematic evaluations, policies, reporting procedures, and victim support (U.S. White House Task Force, 2014). Although these recent headlines have focused attention on universities’ responses to sexual assault, research in prevention program effectiveness has been conducted in university settings for over 30 years. This thesis focuses on past research in primary prevention in facilitated educational trainings for college men. This thesis reviews studies on interventions implemented on college campuses by exploring the most effective practices, and …

The Role Of Portland State University As A Community Partner In Addressing Homelessness, Jennifer Hoskins

University Honors Theses

This paper explores the role of Portland State University as a community partner in addressing the issue of homelessness. The research includes a literature review, findings from a 10-month participant observation study, and interviews with community and academic leaders. The findings from the study focus on community needs, which include having a citizenry educated on issues of poverty and homelessness; having vocal support for public policies that serve people who are homeless; insight from research; and having labor to get work done. The research findings also focus on university needs, which include classroom curriculum centered on poverty and homelessness; service …

Language Sample Length Effects On Various Lexical Diversity Measures: An Analysis Of Spanish Language Samples From Children, Morgan Stills

University Honors Theses

Purpose: various studies have assessed whether lexical diversity in language samples is a useful clinical tool for assessing language abilities. However, not all studies used the same measure of lexical diversity indices or sample demographic. Therefore it is unclear which lexical diversity indices work best when analyzing Spanish language samples. The current study aimed to compare validity evidence for five lexical diversity measures based on Spanish language samples. Specifically it assessed how changes in language-sample length influenced each measure. The most accurate lexical diversity measures were expected to yield similar estimates for a given child across language samples that differed …

Communication Methods In Healthcare For Latinos With Limited English Proficiency: Physician Language Concordance And Children As Translators, Katie Castellanos

University Honors Theses

The goal of this thesis was to examine the primary methods of communication that Latinos with limited English proficiency (LEP) use when professional translators are not available. Latinos constitute 17% of the United States population, 64% of which have limited English proficiency. A literature review was conducted to identify research done in regards to children as translators and physician language concordance. Two themes of communication for Latinos with LEP in the absence of professional translators emerged from the literature review: the use of children as translators, and reliance on physician language concordance. Providers should take caution when working with these …

Differences In How Boomers And Millennials Experience Listening To Recorded Music, Pablo Saldana

University Honors Theses

Music is present in people’s lives. This work looks at cultural changes among two generations, the Baby Boomers and Millennials. Furthermore, there is a focus on values held by each generation when it comes to recorded music. Through textual analyses, claims are made about consumer habits, preferences, and relationships with music held by these distinct generations.

Standing On The Street Corners Of Capitalism : Translations Of Tawara Machi's Chocolate Revolution Tanka, Jared Ridabock

University Honors Theses

This thesis contains original translations of the first three rensaku of best selling author Tawara Machi's 1997 tanka collection Chocolate Revolution. In it, Tawara's work is examined from a critical lens developed by Dean Brink, arguing that while her poetry is subsumed within the language of capitalist consumer society, it's engagement with absurd moments therein creates an opportunity for resistance for readers. While this thesis initially agrees with Brink's assessment of Tawara as an apolitical writer, it suggests that recent works published to social media by Tawara Machi may show a deviation from her apolitical stance and discusses the effect …

The Impact Of Drought On The Sierra Nevada Range: Using Remote Sensing Data To Estimate Large-Scale Carbon Dioxide Flux, Jessica Mazzi

University Honors Theses

Remote sensing is a widely used technique for studying Earth systems, including ecosystem response to global warming. With the recent California drought, remote sensing gives an opportunity to study large-scale CO₂ flux changes over time due to insufficient water uptake by plant life. In this study three flux towers were used, to correlate Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE = PRI * NDVI * PAR), gathered from remote sensing data, and measurements of CO₂ flux from in-situ flux towers over an area of 8,149 km² in the Sierra Nevada Range. To estimate CO₂ from NEE, two linear regressions …

Color Associations As Advertising Strategies: An Analysis Of Consumer Attitudes Toward The Healthfulness Of Energy Bar Packaging, Rachel Lotz

University Honors Theses

Color plays a strong role in shaping consumers’ attitude toward brands, expectations, and likeability in the field of advertising. Associations with colors are formed within consumers’ culture and are often universal in meaning. Through three studies, the role of color in relationship to perceived healthfulness on energy bar packaging is observed. The results show a strong correlation between a particular color associated with healthfulness due to preconceived color associations often highlighted in advertising strategies. However the results raised unexpected, yet insightful correlations with other colors, which participants identified as healthy. When participants were asked to pick the energy bar that …

Transformative Encounters In Conflict Processes, Garrett Evans

University Honors Theses

Beyond resolutions and agreements, there is a deeper level of internal and relational transformation which some conflict processes seek to bring forth. The purpose of this paper is to examine three models of transformation, how it occurs, and how to facilitate it; and to seek common themes and patterns between these models. With these themes identified and illuminated by insights from psychology, philosophy, and interpersonal neurobiology, I offer a synthesized hypothesis of transformation and recommendations for facilitation. Finally, I address future directions for study, particularly in the intersection of trauma, interpersonal neurobiology, contemplative psychology, and conflict transformation.