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Oral History Interview with Ron Chisom
No full textMr. Ron Chisholm was a community organizer and co-founder of The People\u27s Institute for Survival and Beyond. Born in New Orleans in 1941, his career began not in activism but in the medical field, working as a custodial worker and later a medical research technician at Charity Hospital and LSU Medical School. His direct experiences with institutional racism in these settings spurred his transition into community organizing in the 1970s. His expertise was built through decades of on-the-ground, trial and error work, including housing advocacy, tenant organizing, political campaigning, and being the chief plaintiff in a landmark voting rights case, Chisholm v. State of Louisiana. This practical experience informed his development of a sophisticated, systemic analysis of racism, which became the foundation for the nationallyrecognized anti-racism training provided by The People\u27s Institute.https://scholarworks.uno.edu/ejrloh/1018/thumbnail.jp
Essays on Mission Driven Minority Depository Institutions, Alternative Financial Services and Household Finance.
No full textThis dissertation comprises of two essays that documents the role of Mission Driven banks (MDBs) in achieving an inclusive financial sector in the United States. I examine whether the presence of MDBs have an impact on household’s usage of Alternative Financial Services (AFS) or whether the use of AFS serve as complements or substitutes to households. Using a matching and geocoding procedure using zip codes to identify the presence of MDBs, and employing the ordinal logit methodology, I show that households are less likely to use AFS stores when MDS are in close proximity. The effect of lower AFS usage is stronger among households who are more financially responsible. However, the results indicate that households will be more likely to use AFS as an additional financial service provider, suggesting a complementary relationship. In addition, I investigate whether MDBs can diversify their customers by targeting the users of AFS and competing with the providers of AFS. I exploit the performance indicators by measuring deposit growth and asset growth opportunities for MDBs when they target AFS users. The results indicate that MDBs have a higher likelihood of an increased asset growth when they specifically target payday loans users. Overall, this study provides evidence that increasing the geographic proximity of MDBs will not only provide accessible financial products for underserved households but have a positive causal implication by impacting the performance of mission driven banks
Oral History Interview with Bill Quigley
No full textBill Quigley is a social justice lawyer and retired law professor. Born in Chicago in 1949, he came to New Orleans in 1971 to study at a Catholic seminary. His interest in social justice led him to leave the seminary and work as an unlicensed social worker in the St. Thomas housing development. He graduated from Loyola Law School in 1977. His career included working for legal services, serving as an assistant city attorney under Mayor Dutch Morial, and spending 30 years as a law professor at Loyola, where he headed the clinical programs and the Poverty Law Center. He served as general counsel for the ACLU of Louisiana for 15 years and was involved in numerous high-profile cases and community organizing campaigns focused on poverty, housing, voting rights, and racial justice.https://scholarworks.uno.edu/ejrloh/1021/thumbnail.jp
Investigating the Feasibility of Developing a Fully Solar-Driven Combined Cycle Design
Get PDFThis study explores the feasibility of a thermal solar-only combined cycle power plant, a concept rarely investigated despite its potential to outperform photovoltaic systems in energy efficiency. Unlike typical hybrid models that use solar energy as a supplement to fuel, this research focuses on a solar-only system that operates a true Brayton-Rankine combined cycle for continuous 24/7 power generation. The study established an efficiency benchmark, comparing eighteen solar generation scenarios across different storage and power block configurations to assess whether the concept was worth pursuing, which it proved to be. Following this, the research focused on simulation, validating ThermoFlex software as an accurate heat-balance software for real-world power plant simulations. A solar-only combined cycle integrated with a falling particle thermal energy storage system was developed. Simulation results showed strong alignment with the benchmark, confirming the viability of the efficiency advantage of this solar thermal pathway
Atypical Morphometry and Connectivity of the Cortico-Striatal-Thalamo-Cortical Circuit in Children and Adolescents with Chromosome 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome: A Population at Ultra-High Risk for Developing Obsessive-Compulsive and Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders
Get PDFChromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS) is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder associated with serious medical, cognitive, and psychiatric conditions, including significantly elevated risk for obsessive-compulsive (OCD) and/or schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SCZ). The cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical (CSTC) neural circuit is critical for cognitive and emotional processing. Dysfunction of the CSTC circuit is implicated in the etiopathology of both OCD and SCZ but has not been specifically examined in individuals with 22q11.2DS. This study used structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), along with standardized psychological and cognitive measures, to investigate atypical morphometry and white matter connectivity within CSTC-related brain regions in children and adolescents with 22q11.2DS compared to typically developing (TD) controls.
Structural analyses included 23 participants with 22q11.2DS and 21 TD controls, while DTI analyses involved 17 participants with 22q11.2DS and 14 TD controls. Findings revealed significant volumetric reductions in grey and white matter within CSTC-associated regions among participants with 22q11.2DS relative to TD controls in regions including the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), striatum, and thalamus. Additionally, DTI analyses demonstrated altered white matter connectivity characterized by increased mean diffusivity (MD), axial diffusivity (AD), and radial diffusivity (RD) metrics within tracts connecting the OFC, striatum, and thalamus.
Decreased grey and white matter volumes and altered white matter connectivity were significantly associated with elevated levels of anxiety, atypicality, and withdrawal, as well as deficits in attention, learning, and functional communication. Reduced cognitive performance, particularly in working memory and processing speed, also correlated strongly with these neuroanatomical and connective disruptions.
Overall, these findings provide critical insights into the neuroanatomical and connectivity disruptions within the CSTC circuitry in a developing population, highlighting their significance for cognitive, emotional, and psychiatric vulnerability in 22q11.2DS. The results highlight the need for longitudinal and integrative approaches to identify an OCD and/or SCZ endophenotype in 22q11.2DS to aid with early identification and informing targeted interventions in this population at risk for serious psychiatric illness
Effects of Mississippi River Borrow Area Design on Riverine Sediment Transport Using Delft 3D
Get PDFThis research uses a Delft3D model to investigate the impacts of Mississippi River borrow areas on the Mississippi River navigation channel. The largest navigation concerns for the Mississippi River are operation and maintenance costs down; this includes costs of transportation and dredging. Borrow areas are created to supplement beneficial use of dredge material in various projects. Borrow areas are designed to a standard set of guidelines, according to Coastal Protection and Restoration authority (CPRA), and consider impacts to the navigation channel by requiring and minimum distance from the navigation channel. This study models the total sediment transport and amount of infilling using each of the design borrow areas. Ultimately this study showed that the presence of borrow areas does not affect the navigation channel locally, but downstream areas can experience sedimentation along channel edges and in the navigation channel in different cases