Engineering Commons^™

Hyperspectral Imaging For Characterizing Single Plasmonic Nanostructure And Single-Cell Analysis, Nishir Sanatkumar Mehta

LSU Master's Theses

Orientation of plasmonic nanostructures is an important feature in many nanoscale applications such as photovoltaics, catalyst, biosensors DNA interactions, protein detections, hotspot of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), and fluorescence resonant energy transfer (FRET) experiments. Silver nanocubes with significant spectral signatures between 400-700 nm are observed in this experimental research. Whereas study of single cells will enable the analysis of cell-to-cell variations within a heterogeneous population. These variations are important for further analysis and understanding of disease propagation, drug development, stem cell differentiation, embryos development, and how cells respond to each other and their environment. Adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells possess the …

Computational Aerodynamics And Anatomical Characterization Of Laryngotracheal Stenosis In Children, William Poynot

LSU Master's Theses

Laryngotracheal stenosis (LTS) is a health condition in which an obstruction in the upper trachea can cause breathing difficulties and increased incidence of infection, among other symptoms. Occurring most commonly due to intubation in infants, LTS often requires corrective surgery. Currently, clinical methods of assessing the blockage region are simplistic and subjective, and it is challenging to determine the most effective surgical strategy for any given patient. In the present work, a comprehensive methodology is proposed for characterizing the stenosis region both in terms of its anatomical parameters and its corresponding aerodynamic properties. The combination of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) …

Direct Quantification Of Deubiquitinating Enzyme Activity In Single Intact Cells, Nora Safabakhsh

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Challenges in drug efficacy occur during the treatment of most types of cancer due to the heterogeneity of the tumor microenvironment. This has led to the development of personalized medicine. Due to the clinical success of the proteasome inhibitors Bortezomib and Carfilzomib in treatment of multiple myeloma, interest has shifted towards molecularly-targeted chemotherapeutics for ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS). Deubiquitinating enzymes (DUBs) are an essential part of this pathway which have been found to promote Bortezomib resistance in multiple myeloma patients. Unfortunately, there is a lack of specific, high throughput biochemical assays to characterize DUB activity in patient samples before and after …

A Study Of Scalability And Cost-Effectiveness Of Large-Scale Scientific Applications Over Heterogeneous Computing Environment, Arghya K. Das

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Recent advances in large-scale experimental facilities ushered in an era of data-driven science. These large-scale data increase the opportunity to answer many fundamental questions in basic science. However, these data pose new challenges to the scientific community in terms of their optimal processing and transfer. Consequently, scientists are in dire need of robust high performance computing (HPC) solutions that can scale with terabytes of data.

In this thesis, I address the challenges in three major aspects of scientific big data processing as follows: 1) Developing scalable software and algorithms for data- and compute-intensive scientific applications. 2) Proposing new cluster architectures …

Microfluidic Technology And Application In Urinal Analysis, Jiwen Xiang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Microfluidic technology offers numerous advantages in minimizing and integrating the traditional assays. However, the lack of efficient control components of the microfluidic systems has been hindering the widely commercialization of the technology. The research work in this dissertation focused on the development of effective control components for microfluidic applications.

A linear peristaltic pump was firstly designed, fabricated, and tested for conventional microfluidics by synchronously compressing the microfluidic channel with a miniature cam-follower system in Chapter 2. The miniature cam-follower system and microfluidic chip was prototyped using three-dimensional (3D) printing technology and soft lithography technology. Results from experimental test showed that …