Expanding The Definition Of Liminality: Speculative Fiction As An Exploration Of New Boundaries, Dianna C. Lacy

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Speculative fiction allows an expanded view of literature and so allows scholars to explore new boundaries in the way words and ideas work. In the titular character of The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, the reader sees an expansion of self through liminality while A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick explores its collapse. In order to portray each of these the character examined must move though one seems to move upward and the other downward. This idea of movement is only part of what expands the idea of liminality past the traditional idea of a doorway to create …

Teachers' Perceptions Of How The Teacher Evaluation Process Impacts Classroom Instruction In Three High Poverty School Districts, Zina R. Jones Ms

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Improving the educational system for students and teachers is of the upmost importance. Educational leaders have realized that the best way to improve student success is by improving teachers’ instructional practices and measuring their effectiveness (Mathers, Oliva, & Laine, 2008). Because of this awareness, educators have realized the importance of connecting student achievement with instructional practices and instructional practices with teacher effectiveness. Evaluation tools are used to measure how effective teachers are in their classrooms. Evaluations are crucial in assisting our teachers in their professional growth. When evaluations are utilized as supportive tools, they help teachers and administrators identify …

Bringing The Theory Of Street-Level Bureaucrats Into The 21st Century: A Study Of Social Workers In Louisiana, Quian J. Lewis

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the applicability of Michael Lipsky’s (1980) concept of “street-level bureaucracy” to the profession of social work in 2019. Street-level bureaucrats are public service workers “who interact with citizens in the regular course of their jobs; have significant independence in decision making, and potentially have extensive impact on the lives of their citizens” (Lipsky, 1980:3). They are faced with uncertainties in their work related to inadequate resources, unclear policies, and caseloads/workloads that defy what may be possible to achieve by any one worker. Workers develop routines and “coping mechanisms,” to manage their environments. The routines that they develop …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of A Community-Based Youth Non-Profit Organization At Increasing Prosocial Behavior And Decreasing Antisocial Behavior Among Young Boys: A Pilot Study, Molly A. Miller

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Community-based youth non-profit organizations (NPOs) have become increasingly popular for the provision of youth prevention and intervention services, yet many youth NPOs lack the resources to undergo formal evaluation. Further, most existing program evaluations do not consider individual characteristics of the child or the child’s exposure to stressors. The current pilot study sought to evaluate the extent to which boys participated in 1:1 mentoring and other program activities at the Son of a Saint (SOAS) NPO, an organization seeking to provide positive male role models for fatherless young boys. In addition, the current study examined the effects of program involvement …

How To Get A Job In Book Publishing, Grecia Medina

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

There are many different doorways into the world of book publishing and it can be challenging, but there are choices that can make it easier. Aspiring publishers often have a hard time breaking into this world because they have no guide. This thesis will be a guide to traversing the different avenues into the world of publishing. Prospective publishers, editors, and writers will be provided with a landscape of what it’s like to work in book publishing. It will also cover the two different ways that people become publishers, an overview of the basic requirements that publishing houses look for …

An Experimental And Numerical Study Of High Temperature Gaseous Flow Through An Open Cell Silicon Carbide Foam Heater, Denis Pansolin

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Acclimation, Long-Term Repeatability, And Phenotypic Correlations Of Aerobic Metabolic Traits In The Gulf Killifish, Fundulus Grandis, Jessica E. Reemeyer

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This research examined the effects of acclimation to lowered salinity, elevated temperature, and hypoxia on aerobic metabolism of the Gulf killifish, Fundulus grandis, a common estuarine resident of the Gulf of Mexico. Standard metabolic rate (SMR), maximum metabolic rate (MMR), absolute aerobic scope (AAS), and critical oxygen tension (P_crit) were each influenced by one or more acclimation treatments. Assessing the consistency of these traits measured in the same individuals over time, all were found to be significantly repeatable with no indication that the repeatability of any traits was affected by acclimation conditions. Significant correlations were found between …

We Will Plant Birds Of Paradise, Genevieve A. Rheams

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

A Domain Specific Language For Digital Forensics And Incident Response Analysis, Christopher D. Stelly

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

One of the longstanding conceptual problems in digital forensics is the dichotomy between the need for verifiable and reproducible forensic investigations, and the lack of practical mechanisms to accomplish them. With nearly four decades of professional digital forensic practice, investigator notes are still the primary source of reproducibility information, and much of it is tied to the functions of specific, often proprietary, tools.

The lack of a formal means of specification for digital forensic operations results in three major problems. Specifically, there is a critical lack of:

a) standardized and automated means to scientifically verify accuracy of digital forensic tools; …

Weathering The Storm: Black Maternal Mortality, Resistance, And Power In Richard Wright’S “Down By The Riverside,” Zora Neale Hurston’S Their Eyes Were Watching God, And Jesmyn Ward’S Salvage The Bones, Renee Vincent

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Representations of natural disasters in Black Southern literature identify social location as the greatest indicator of risk vulnerability. Moreover, they can expose the precarious subjectivity of the Black female reproductive body, as addressed through characters Lulu in Richard Wright’s “Down by the Riverside,” Janie in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Jesmyn Ward’s Esch in Salvage the Bones. Together, these female characters share a legacy of social marginalization and Black female resistance that is (re)shaped through their experiences with ecological catastrophe. This thesis considers these three texts together as an ongoing testimony and as a …

Seismic Communication, Anna Tatelman

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

All Trails Lead To Sterling: How Sterling Brown Fathered The Field Of Black Literary And Cultural Studies, 1936-1969, Amber E. Zu-Bolton

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Poet and professor Sterling A. Brown (1901-1989) played a significant role in the birth of black literary and cultural studies through his literary and academic careers. Brown helped to establish a new wave of black cultural and folklore studies during his time as the “Director of Negro Affairs” for the Federal Writers’ Project. As a professor at Howard University, Brown influenced black literary studies through his literary criticisms and seminars and his role as a mentor to literary figures of the next generations. Through letters to and from Sterling Brown and manuscripts, this thesis argues that Brown’s poetry, publications and …

Reliability Sensitivity Analysis Of Dropped Objects Hitting On The Pipeline At Seabed, Hanqi Yu

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Nowadays, as oil industry gradually moves towards deep sea fields with water depth more than 1000 meters, they are subjected to several threats which can cause failure of the pipeline, of which the accidentally-dropped objects have become the leading external risk factor for subsea developments. In this thesis, a sample field layout introduced in Det Norske Veritas (DNV) guide rules is selected as the study case with 100 m water depth. Six different groups of dropped objects are used in this paper. The conditional hit probability for long/flat shaped objects will be calculated with the methods from both DNV rules …

Vertical Acoustic Propagation In The Non-Homogeneous Layered Atmosphere For A Time-Harmonic, Compact Source, Edward J. Yoerger Jr

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In this work we study vertical, acoustic propagation in a non-homogeneous media for a spatially-compact, time-harmonic source. An analytical, 2-layer model is developed representing the acoustic pressure disturbance propagating in the atmosphere. The validity of the model spans the distance from the Earth's surface to 30,000 meters. This includes the troposphere (adiabatic), ozone layer (isothermal), and part of the stratosphere (isothermal). The results of the model derivation in the adiabatic region yield pressure solutions as Bessel functions of the First (J) and Second (Y) Kind of order $-\frac{7}{2}$ with an argument of $2 \Omega \tau$ (where $\Omega$ represents a dimensionless …

Structural Connectivity And Immunological Correlates Of Emotion Processing In Children With Chromosome 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome, Ashley F. P. Sanders

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Neurological abnormalities are associated with emotion processing deficits seen in children with neurodevelopmental disorders. Research suggests that inflammatory mechanisms can negatively impact brain structure and function and are thought to play a role in these processing atypicalities. Children with chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS) exhibit emotion processing impairments and associated neural abnormalities. We investigated the roles of inflammatory factors and structural connectivity in relation to emotion processing deficits in 28 children with 22q11.2DS and 33 typically developing children (M = 11.12 years old; SD = 2.17). Results indicate poorer social skills and significantly lower emotion recognition scores in children …

Evolution And Stratigraphic Architecture Of Tidal Point Bars With And Without Fluvial Input: Influence Of Variable Flow Regimes On Sediment And Facies Distribution, And Lateral Accretion, Pricilla Souza

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Tide-influenced point bars represent a significant proportion of shallow-marine deposits, commonly developed along meandering channels in most backbarrier and estuarine systems. However, sedimentological studies to characterize this type of deposit are still emerging. They often present very heterogeneous internal architectures which development is controlled by the complex flow patterns operating in tidal environments. The study of the sedimentological and morphological characteristics of these features provides better understanding of the hydrodynamic processes that shape coastal systems and control their evolution as well as it contributes to better reservoir potential prediction and production strategy optimization, as tidal point bars may represent hydrocarbon …

Euclidean Dynamical Triangulations: Running Couplings And Curvature Correlation Functions, Scott David Bassler

Dissertations - ALL

Quantum field theories have been incredibly successful at describing many fundamental aspects of reality with great precision, sometimes relying on the powerful computational tool of lattice methods. Gravity has so far eluded a quantum field theory description, leading many to consider alternate theories like String Theory. However, recent results in lattice quantum gravity have brought some renewed interest in the subject. After reviewing the progress made so far in Euclidean Dynamical Triangulations, a lattice theory of gravity, we examine how the couplings of the theory run with scale. We find that the dimensionless couplings $\hat{G}$ and $\hat{\Lambda}$ are not separately …

Consumer Attachment And Corporate Social Advocacy: Leveraging Political Behaviors To Bolster Organization-Public Relationships, Jonathan Borden

Dissertations - ALL

Corporations are increasingly weighing in to advocate for one side or the other in cultural and political debates. As these types of corporate social advocacy become increasingly common, much is still unknown as to how they affect consumer perceptions of the organization, attitudes regarding their relationship with the organization, and their future purchase or behavioral intentions.

This study aims to address this gap.

Utilizing a survey conducted in late spring-2019, this study assesses public perceptions of corporate political engagement/corporate social advocacy and their subsequent attitudes towards the organization and future behavioral intentions.

Analysis revealed that corporate social advocacy does have …

Understanding The Role Of Anisotropy On The Optoelectronic And Colloidal Properties Of Quantum Rods For Programmable Self-Assembly With Dna Origami, Yuetian Chen

Dissertations - ALL

Semiconductor nanocrystals, like quantum dots (QDs) and quantum rods (QRs), have tunable optoelectronic properties that depend on their composition, size and asymmetry. A small change in size or aspect ratio can lead to measurable changes in optical absorption and photoluminescence emission energies, as well as varied degrees of polarized optical behaviors at those energies. My dissertation research focuses on investigating the role of anisotropy on the optoelectronic and colloidal properties of quantum rods, as well as using DNA-mediated self-assembly to align these quantum rods on DNA origami for energy transfer applications in biocompatible systems. First, CdSe of systematically varied aspect …

Novel Shape Memory And Multi-Shape Memory Polymers For Biomaterial Applications, Shelby Lois Buffington

Dissertations - ALL

Biomaterial platforms have been used to probe how cells respond to chemical, topographical or mechanical changes in their environments. However, these traditionally static biomaterial platforms have not enabled the study of how cells respond to dynamic changes in their environment. Driven by a need to better understand cell behavior and its role it disease, development and tissue regeneration recent efforts have focused on designing dynamic biomaterial platforms to better mimic a cell’s natural environment. In this work, advanced shape memory polymers (SMPs) that respond to non-thermal triggers and multi-shape memory materials capable of multiple topographical transitions were developed for advanced …

Numerical Investigation Of Laser-Induced Ignition Phenomena, Deshawn Coombs

Dissertations - ALL

This thesis investigates various aspects of laser-ignition. Laser ignition is a form of combustion initiation by means of a focused laser pulse in a combustible mixture. The ignition process consists of a chain of processes with varying degrees of importance to the prediction of a successful flame propagation. Some of these processes include plasma formation, induced shock wave, emergence of a flame kernel, and successful transition to a self-sustained flame or flame quenching. This thesis will explore various aspects of this process using computational fluid dynamics and model analysis with the aim of identifying the controlling processes and simplified ways …

Digital Readout And Control Of A Superconducting Qubit, Caleb Jordan Howington

Dissertations - ALL

In the quest to build a fault-tolerant quantum computer, superconducting circuits based on Josephson junctions have emerged as a leading architecture. Coherence times have increased significantly over the last two decades, and processors with ∼ 50 qubits have been experimentally demonstrated. These systems traditionally utilize microwave frequency control signals, and heterodyne based detection schemes for measurement. Both of these techniques rely heavily on room temperature microwave generators, high-bandwidth lines from room temperature to millikelvin temperatures, and bulky non-reciprocal elements such as cryogenic microwave isolators. Reliance on these elements makes it impractical to scale existing devices up a single order of …

Network Sampling Through Crawling, Katchaguy Areekijseree

Dissertations - ALL

In recent years, researchers have increasingly used OSN data to study human behavior. Before such a study can begin, one must first obtain appropriate data. A platform, e.g, Facebook or Twitter, may provide an API for accessing data, but such APIs are often ratelimited, restricting the amount of data that an individual collects in a given amount of time. In order for the data collector to efficiently collect data, she needs to make intelligent use of her limited budget. Therefore, when collecting data, efficiency is extremely important. We consider the problem of network sampling through crawling, in which the data …

Locating People Of Interest In Social Networks, Pivithuru Wijegunawardana

Dissertations - ALL

By representing relationships between social entities as a network, researchers can analyze them using a variety of powerful techniques. One key problem in social network analysis literature is identifying certain individuals (key players, most influential nodes) in a network. We consider the same problem in this dissertation, with the constraint that the individuals we are interested in identifying (People of Interest) are not necessarily the most important nodes in terms of the network structure. We propose an algorithm to find POIs, algorithms to collect data to find POIs, a framework to model POI behavior and an algorithm to predict POIs …

: Examining How Factors Associated With Patients, Physicians, Hospitals, And Surrounding Communities Affect Primary And Repeat Cesarean Delivery Through A Social-Ecological Lens, Christina Ventura-Dipersia

Dissertations and Theses

Background: Childbirth is one of the most common reasons for hospitalization in the U.S., and Cesarean delivery (i.e., surgical childbirth) is costlier and has a higher likelihood of birth-related complications, maternal rehospitalization, and postpartum medical care utilization than vaginal delivery. The rate of Cesarean delivery in the United States (U.S.) has increased in recent years by over 60%, from 20.7% of all births in 1996 to 32.9% of all births in 2011. As Although this increasing trend of Cesarean delivery incidence has also been seen in other countries, the rate of Cesarean delivery has been rising more steadily within …

Leader At The Bedside: A Mixed Methods Study Establishing Clinical Staff Nurse Leadership Competencies, Sherron Denise Franks-Meeks

Nursing Theses and Dissertations

Significance and Background

Leadership competencies were established for formal nursing roles (i.e. nurse executives), but not for informal nurse leader roles (i.e. clinical staff nurse leader). A set of comprehensive clinical staff nurse leader (CSNL) competencies would facilitate evaluation of the CSNL role in providing safe, quality, and efficient patient care.

Purpose

The purpose of this pilot was to establish a preliminary set of CSNL competencies with associated set of knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) for each competency identified through the CSNL’s voice. Theory & Design Underpinned by the Authentic Leadership Theory, this pilot was a multiphase sequential explanatory mixed …

Fft Phase Shift Of Water Wave Analysis, Chu-Kuan Lin, Shih-Yu Hsu, Jaw-Guei Lin

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

The fast Fourier transform (FFT) has been accepted as a tool for signal processing. This study conducted a series of numerical experiments using Matlab. By conducting FFT analysis on designated wave trains, the FFT results revealed that an extra phase shift of ��ሺ2�� ��⁄ ሻ , with N representing the number of data points for an i-th wave component, was implicitly added to the analyzed phases during the analysis. When extra phase shifts were subtracted from the analyzed phases of each component, signals could be completely reconstructed in the time domain with an acceptable difference. This study tested component and …

Distinguished Professor Known For Enthusiasm; Scholarship, Micky Bedell

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

Computational Studies And Design Of Pparγ And Glut1 Inhibitors, Suliman Almahmoud

Theses & Dissertations

The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) is a ligand-dependent transcription factor of the nuclear receptor superfamily that controls the expression of a variety of genes involved in fatty acid metabolism, adipogenesis, and insulin sensitivity. PPARγ is a target for insulin-sensitizing drugs, and it plays a significant function in prostate cancer. PPARγ antagonists have anti-proliferative effects in a broad range of hematopoietic and epithelial cell lines. The ligand binding domain (LBD) of PPARγ is large and has orthosteric and allosteric binding sites. Several PPARγ-ligand co-crystal structures show two bound molecules, one to the orthosteric pocket and a second to the allosteric …

The Effectiveness Of Resin-Modified Glass Ionomer Varnish In Preventing White Spot Lesions During Fixed Appliance Orthodontic Therapy: An In Vitro Study, Bradley Herman

Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the efficacy of a glass ionomer varnish in preventing demineralization of enamel adjacent to and some distance away from an orthodontic bracket. Forty extracted human molars were divided into four different treatment groups (varnish in distilled water, varnish in acetic acid, enamel in acetic acid, and enamel in distilled water). Two 3 x 3 mm graphite windows were drawn on the tooth, one adjacent to the bracket and one 3 mm away from the first window, indicating the scanning area. Varnish was applied to the teeth in the varnish groups and all …