Summer Stipend Program

Abstracts

Arts & Humanities

The Acquisition of Functional Elements by Children Learning English as a First Language

Michael Hegarty, Department of English

The project was concerned with the representation of functional elements, including complementizers, clausal inflection (exemplified by auxiliaries and tense), and negation, in the clause structure of children learning English. The work was based on a theory of clausal architecture on which the presence of functional elements depends on general representational resources of the grammar. In previous work, I had noted that aspects of the acquisition of functional elements described in the literature follow straightforwardly on the conjecture that these representational resources are subject to growth as the child matures. This conjecture predicts that child acquisition of functional elements should exhibit a sequence of stages in which the number of functional elements that can be supported within a single clause increases by one with each stage, and it predicts that there should be no particular order of acquisition of functional elements. During July 2000, these predictions were tested against published child language data in several complete longitudinal studies, each containing many thousands of child utterances across the relevant developmental period. For each child, the number of functional elements in each utterance was counted, and local maxima in the number of functional elements present were plotted against time. The results clearly evidenced the developmental stages predicted by my conjecture, indicating that some aspects of child language acquisition are determined by the growth of basic representational resources, rather than by the acquisition of particular grammatical formatives or constructions. For more information contact Dr. Hegarty at mhegar1@lsu.edu. Bakhtin and Performance Patricia A. Suchy, Department of Speech Communication Project describes the significance of and rationale for a book-length study that adapts the theories of Mikhail Bakhtin, a twentieth century Russian philosopher of language, culture, aesthetics and ethics, to theatrical contexts. In literary studies especially, Bakhtin has widely influenced contemporary scholarship with his notion of the inherent "dialogic" quality of language that reaches its fullest potential in the novel. The seminal chapter connecting Bakhtinian authorship with acting will be undertaken during the grant period. For more information contact Dr. Suchy at psuchy@lsu.edu.

Engineering

Minimization of Power Losses in Magnetic Bearing-Based Flywheels

Marcio S. de Queiroz, Department of Mechanical Engineering

The goal of the proposed project was to develop a control system that minimizes power losses in flywheels supported by active magnetic bearings (AMBs). The control law was designed with the following three attributes in mind: regulation of the flywheel rotor displacement to zero; eliminating the steady-state bias flux; and, elimination of control singularities. A simulation study confirmed that the proposed controller reduced the ohmic power losses and energy dissipation of the AMB system in comparison to the standard constant-bias approach without affecting the regulation performance. For more information contact Dr. Marcio de Queiroz at dequeiroz@me.lsu.edu.

Modeling of Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) Based Devices for Ultra Low Power Electronics

Ashok Srivastava, Electrical & Computer Engineering The main objective of the proposed research is to develop submicron (0.1 to 1 micrometer) silicon-on-insulator device models for the design of ultra low power and high performance microelectronic systems for applications in computation and communications. Our proposed research plan includes developing SOI device analytical models and investigating current device models for submicron dimensions. The device models will include small geometry effects, ionizing radiation effects, and floating body effects. For more information contact Dr. Ashok Srivastava at eesriv@lsu.edu.

Human Resources & Services/Business

Pioneering Advantage: First in Market or First in Trial?

Ronald Niedrich, Department of Marketing

The product pioneer is defined as the first brand to create a new product category in the minds of consumers. For example, Xerox copiers, Kleenex tissue paper, and Wrigley's gum are considered pioneering products. It is commonly believed that first-in-market brands have a competitive advantage over later brand entrants. Within the marketing literature, two behavioral explanations of the pioneering advantage have been offered. Early work focused on order-based explanations. More recently, a scheme-based explanation has been suggested. The study revealed there is mixed support for the order-based explanations but the data provide strong support for the pioneering schema. For more information contact Dr. Ronald Niedrich at niedrich@lsu.edu.

Consumer Categorization of Services: Implications for Evaluation Processes

Jane W. Licata, Department of Marketing

The purpose of the project was to determine how consumers categorize services. The project was grounded in the psychological research on categorization processes. Simply stated, individuals categorize items to make sense of their environment. Theoretically, the research was designed to increase knowledge in the marketing field regarding consumer perceptions of services. Determining how consumers categorize and evaluate courses, as part of the same process, has not been researched to date. Managerially, the research was designed to provide marketing managers with insights into the leases used by consumers to organize the service environment and the form of evaluation used for various services. The research was undertaken in attempt to explain inconsistencies in the current body of research that focuses on consumer evaluations of service quality. For more information contact Dr. Licata at jlicata@lsu.edu.

Life Sciences

Holocene Depositional History of the Northeastern Gulf of Mexico Shelf

Laurie C. Anderson, Department of Geology and Geophysics

My research into the Holocene depositional history of the northeastern Gulf of Mexico shelf involved assessments of and shell resources and sediment dynamics of this region. The cumulative goal of this research was to integrate seafloor processes and shelf stratigraphy to develop a model for the evolution of the shelf in response to Holocene sea-level rise. Sea-level rise and coastal erosion are problems of national importance in the United States, and have widespread economic and social consequences. The northeastern Gulf of Mexico is not exempt from the effects of sea-level rise and coastal erosion. In addition, offshore lease areas on the Florida Panhandle continental shelf may be opened for oil and gas exploration and development in the near future, and potential geologic hazards such as seafloor liquefaction and bedform migration must be evaluated before offshore emplacement of oil and gas infrastructure. One of the most interesting results of our work is the insight gained into paleoclimatic change over the last 6000 years in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. Large foraminifera (protozoans that secrete a calcareous test) are conspicuous in death assemblages from the Holocene marine sediments of the area. I am now planning to further examine the paleoenvironmental significance of seagrass communities along the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, where marine seagrass habitats are well developed today. This research will test hypotheses of transport potential and sediment mixing proposed in our examination of the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. For more information contact Dr. Anderson at glande@lsu.edu.

Will a More Straight-line Food Web Enhance Trophic Cascades?

Charles W. Ramcharan, Department of Biological Sciences

Researcher proposes to test the hypothesis that more straight-line food webs in freshwater lakes would facilitate transmission of "top-down" effects form piscivorous fish to algae. Researcher will conduct experiments using large-scale experimental food webs to determine if presence or absence of two different types of invertebrate predators affects the outcome of trophic cascades. Experiments will be conducted in Ontario, at the site of a research project that I have directed for the past four years. For more information contact Dr. Charles W. Ramcharan at cramcha@lsu.edu.

Physical Sciences

Target Site Selection by the Yeast RNA Polymerase III Recruitment Factor

Anne Grove, Department of Biological Sciences

Research activities centered on an analysis of the DNA-binding specificity of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae RNA polymerase (pol) III recruitment factor, TFIIIB. RNA pol III s brought to its promoters by TFIIIB which is composed of the TATA-binding protein, TBP, and two additional polypeptides, Brf and B". In vivo, where DNA is packaged into chromatin, TFIIIB is assembled at the promoter by its multisubunit assembly factor, TFIIIC. In vitro, the absolute dependence on TFIIIC may be circumvented, as TFIIIB can assemble autonomously on DNA with a strong TARA box; interactions of TBP with its target site nucleates this assembly process (White 1998). For more information contact Dr. Grove at agrove@lsu.edu.

Mountain Building in the Central Andes of South America

Brian Horton, Department of Geology and Geophysics

Principal investigator spent the entire month of July 2000 doing field research in remote areas of Bolivia. This research included detailed analysis of the geological history of the Altiplano plateau, the second highest landmass on Earth. The Altiplano plateau extends over an area of 200,000 square kilometers and exhibited an average elevation of ~12,000 feet (4km.). The ongoing research focuses on the initial age of uplift of this immense topographic feature in the Bolivian central Andes. The Altiplano forms the core issue of a heated scientific debate concerning the timing of mountain building in South America. Different research groups have variously attributed the Andes to mountain building over the past 70, 40, 30, or 10 million years. The correct answer to these competing hypotheses is critical for the understanding of long-term rates of faulting, uplift, and potentially earthquake hazards for the Andes specifically and mountain belts in general. For more information contact Dr. Horton at horton@geol.lsu.edu.

Femtosecond Ultraviolet Light Pulses

Kenneth J. Schafer, Department of Physics and Astronomy

Present day optical lasers can couple very large amounts of radiation to matter on extremely short time scales. Optical wavelengths, however, are too long to be used to image and control time-dependent atomic and molecular processes coherently. Realizing these goals requires ultra-fast pulses at shorter wavelengths, in the ultraviolet (photon energies of 20-300 eV). Because the time scale for molecular motion can be as fast as 10 femtoseconds, ideally these pulses should be as short as one femtosecond (1 fs =10 exp(-15) sec.). We proposed to study the feasibility of compressing high-order harmonies, ultraviolet light that is emitted when intense laser light interacts with a gas of atoms, in order to produce femtosecond ultraviolet pulses. This research involved two parts: a theoretical study of the physics of compressing high order harmonics, and a modeling study of the possible design parameters for a positive dispersion compressor operating in the vacuum ultraviolet (10-100 eV photons). For more information contact Dr. Schafer at kschafe@lsu.edu.

Examination of Ancient Earth Rocks for Evidence of Structures Resembling Possible Fossils in Martian Meteorite ALH84001

Maud M. Walsh, Institute for Environmental Studies

Structures similar to, but much smaller than, fossilized bacteria in Earth rocks were recently reported for a Martian meteorite. Researcher plans to use scanning electron microscopy to examine 3.4 billion-year old rocks from which I have described bacterial fossils (using light microscopy) to determine whether they contain even smaller bacteria-like structures. For more information contact Dr. Maud M. Walsh at evwals@lsu.edu.

Social Sciences

Multicultural Education as "Re-visioned" from a Postcolonial Lens"

Nina Asher, Department of Curriculum and Instruction This project focused on creating one chapter for a planned book on multicultural education. The first chapter, Discourses of Multiculturalism and Marginality in Education, focuses on: 1) presenting a critical overview of extant discourses of multiculturalism (such as approaches relying on inclusion and cultural relativism); 2) engaging postcolonial perspectives (in relation to race, class, gender, history, geography, culture) to rethink multiculturalism in terms of the processes of negotiating dynamic identities and representations in curriculum and teaching, and therefore; 3) discussing the implications for (and of) deconstructing the split between "margins" and "center," "self," and "other," and so on. Building on this, Chapter Two, Situating Asian American Education: In the Margins of Multicultural Discourse, will extend the analysis of marginality to reveal how multicultural education, as it is currently construed, is itself implicated in perpetuation marginalization in certain ways. For more information contact Dr. Asher at nasher1@lsu.edu.

Documentation and Analysis of Louisiana Acadian Quilts Made from Handwoven Fabrics

Jenna Tedrick Kuttruff, School of Human Ecology

This project focused on providing a beginning for a long-term project documenting Acadian quilts and other handwoven Acadian textiles located in private and public collections in South Louisiana. Although these textiles were common during the nineteenth century, relatively few have survived to the present. Textiles in private, public, and family collections were sought and several quilts were located along with numerous other handwoven Acadian textiles. An inventory of additional textiles is being kept so that they may be documented at a later date. Quilt documentation includes a photographic record, measurements, materials identification and description, design, quilting techniques, and history. For more information contact Dr. Kuttruff at jkutt1@lsu.edu.

Groupthink in Foreign Policy Decision Making: The Relationship Between Process & Outcome

Mark Schafer, Department of Political Science

How do groups processes affect crisis outcomes. Groupthink posits that certain defective decision-making processes within groups, such as poor information search and lack of impartial leadership, will result in poor policy outcomes. The present study uses quantitative procedures to systematically investigate group processes in 30 cases of international crisis. Trained coders will review case materials and code each case for the presence or absence of 17 operationalized groupthink variables. Outcome assessments for each case will be solicited from 20 outside experts and combined to form an index. Multivariate regression analysis will serve as the statistical modeling procedure. The study has implications for our understanding of international conflict and for policy groups interested in improving the quality of the decision-making process. For more information contact Dr. Mark Schafer at poscha@lsu.edu.

Visual & Performance Arts

Expanding the Boundaries of Painting

Kelli Scott Kelley, School of Art

This project focused on working on translating some of the artist's paintings into an animated narrative film. Initially the project was directed at writing a narrative, making drawings and developing the imagery, and constructing the set and story boards. The film evolved into a combination of live action, shot with digital video and stop-action sequences shot with film and transferred to video. The artist was able to utilize existing digital video editing equipment owned by the School of Art to edit the piece. For more information contact Kelli Scott Kelley at kskelley@lsu.edu.

Metal Casting: Sand Mold Possibilities

Cynthia Handel, School of Art

This project focused on expansion of the artist's sand casting experience, development of new skills, and attainment of new knowledge of new sand resins which are stronger and more suited to the climate of Louisiana. The early part of the project time was spent working on developing patterns, which would later be cast from sand molds. The latter part of the time was spent creating four large hung core sand molds for the artist's largest sculpture to date which will reside the LSU Sculpture Park when it is finished. For more information contact Professor Handel at chande1@lsu.edu.

Recording Project for Flute & Harp

Katherine Kemler, School of Music

Researcher proposes to record a compact disk of contemporary works for flute and harp that are currently not available in this country. The works to be recorded are by composers Lutoslawski, Andres, Lauber, and Schaposchnikov. LSU harpist Ann Benjamin has agreed to work with me on this project and Victor Sachse of Centaur Records, Inc. has agreed to both record and produce this CD. For more information contact Dr. Katherine Kemler at kkemler@lsu.edu.