Java programming language

Control of AIDS

Laws and judicial pronouncements

Representational systems

In this study, patient-physician interaction, patient socio-demographic factors, health literacy, sources of care, and use of diabetes-related health services, were examined to assess the relationships to patients’ satisfaction with the quality of health care they received in the past 2 years. By examining the relationship among patient, physician and environmental systems’ factors, research findings will be used to develop interventions that will inform patient education and physician training and foster patient and physician behavior change that ultimately leads to improved health outcomes for adults with diabetes. To answer the research questions, univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to assess the predictability of the 5 groups of dependent variables: 1) socio-demographic factors, 2) sources of care “factors”, 3) health literacy “factors”, 4) patient-physician interaction “factors”, and 5) use of diabetes-related services “factors”. Individually these groups comprised thirty-two dependent variables. Three dependent variables, specifically confidence and trust in doctor; doctor spend as much time as wanted; and had a hemoglobin A1c in the last 6 months, were statistically significantly predictive of a relationship with patient satisfaction with quality of health care. This study provides insight regarding the specific aspects of patient-physician interaction and use of diabetes-related services that impact patient health outcomes. By knowing that a statistically significant relationship exists among confidence and trust in a doctor, being able to spend as much as time as wanted with a doctor, having a hemoglobin A1c in the last 6 months, and satisfaction with quality of health care, future investigators know which influences are perhaps most influential and deserve further exploration to predict satisfaction with quality of health care.

This study uses the methods and discourses of creative/performative writing and formal aesthetics to evoke the visual aesthetic principles exercised and developed by the Bauhaus and its Stage Workshop. It explores the creative connections between visual and written forms that can affect meaning through primary, universal expression and comprehension. First, a graph links creative/performative writing and avant-garde theater concepts with related Bauhaus performance documents. This initial graph contains the key forms of visual and written expression used in the remaining sections. These further areas of inquiry include, an evocative rendering of the multiple and partial histories that include the Bauhaus, an investigation of formal aesthetics and as interpreted by the Bauhaus, and interpretation and investigation of three of the Bauhaus Stage Workshop performances applying written and aesthetic methods aimed at richer analysis. The Bauhaus' development of formal aesthetics, particularly the Stage Workshop performances, provide a dynamic testing ground for how creative/performative writing and formal aesthetics can aid in expression and comprehension of visual artistic works. As both methods and subjects of inquiry, creative/performative writing and formal aesthetics offer a means of stressing the evocative and citational power of creative discourses, by emphasizing a visual/experiential model for scholarly research. The study concludes with a call for further investigation of the power of primary formal aesthetics upon comprehension and expression of experiences that might otherwise lose consensus due to cultural variables.

The purpose of this study is to examine the predictors that influenced the interactivity of U.S. daily newspapers Web sites, namely the market size of newspapers, newspapers ownership, the number of online newspaper technical staff, length of newspaper Web site existence. Whether a national newspaper has different interactive Web site from a local newspaper is also studied. A content analysis of 106 U.S. daily newspapers Web sites found that market size and length of time newspapers having Internet presence sites are correlated to the interactive level of newspapers Web sites. National newspapers are also found having more interactive Web sites than local newspapers.

This study is a metaperformance autoethnography of the Isleno decima singers of Saint Bernard Parish, Louisiana. The performance and event of the decima are explored using research techniques including the performance of ethnography. First a basis is provided for the study by presenting a brief historical overview of the Spanish influence in Saint Bernard Parish, Louisiana. The work of Richard Bauman in Verbal Art as Performance is included in order to key the decima as a performance event. Second, the script, A Tribute to Storytellers: Isleno Decima Singers of Louisiana, performed at Louisiana State University in The HopKins Black Box Theatre, is included to demonstrate the research process of the decima. Third, the study analyzes and interprets the performance of the script in order to explore audience critique and the learning process of performing research as a way of knowing. This study concludes with a performative writing piece addressing my relationship to the study as a member of the Isleno community and scholarly researcher as well as future possibilities of research and performative studies of the Isleno traditions.

This is an ethnographic study of the drumline of the LSU Marching Band and the mock-fraternity they created called Phi Boota roota (ΦBr). I argue that ΦBr was created as a site to flesh out the various tensions members experience as members of the LSU drumline; they create a rite of passage ritual that functions as a carnivalesque and celebratory inversion of the system they find themselves submerged within. Phi Boota roota marks a created articulation of the transition members make when they become part of the larger ritual of Tigerband; it is a voluntary or liminoid ritual that allows members to deal with the excess parts of their own personalities and individuality while fully embracing, though at times parodying, their inherited identity and image as members of the LSU Band. Through the use of performative writings combined with more traditional ethnographic field reports and descriptions/interpretations, this thesis strives to give voice to the tensions felt within the rituals of Tigerband and ΦBr, the tension of representation within ethnographic study, and the tension of creative experimentation within academic writing. Throughout the study, I use the metaphor of "audiation" to experiment with representing ethnographic experience and knowledge. Audiation is the practice of thinking and comprehending music with your mind, and it functions as a pedagogical tool for creating and remembering sound. Metaphorically, audiation illustrates an action that requires both memory and creativity; a process that gives sound/motion to a sounding/action by re-creating it in the mind. These audiations provide a forum for both the traditional and the inventive to resonate within the context of an ethnographic exploration of the performance of ΦBr.

Advances in technology have given the blind public a new voice in corporate America. Today, blind individuals are able to utilize the Internet independently using screen access software. However, like ramps for wheelchairs in physical spaces, Web site accommodations are needed in cyberspace for successful use. A review of the current literature indicates trends in public relations are shifting toward a corporate ethic of social responsibility, but on-line concerns for the disabled are not clearly demonstrated among the leading corporations in the United States. The purpose of this research is to determine if blind consumers are being accommodated on corporate Web sites in a manner that is conducive to public relations efforts to establish and maintain positive relationships with this new public. A content analysis of the Web sites maintained by the top 100 Fortune 500 corporations in the United States was performed to identify the current Web design practices being used to relate to blind publics through the Internet. The results indicate the needs of the blind consumer are not being met in mainstream business practices on the World Wide Web, despite government initiatives to support Web accessibility for the disabled.