Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Boulder Distribution Analysis Of Impact Craters In The Tharsis Region And Elysium Planitia, Mars, Nicole Button

LSU Master's Theses

Crater counting is an accepted method for dating the surface of a planetary body. An older landscape will have a higher areal density of craters due to exposure of impacts occurring over a longer time period. Since each initial impact only forms one primary crater, secondary craters need to be excluded in the crater counting method to appropriately catalog only distinct impact events. However, small primary craters may be difficult to distinguish from secondary craters. Understanding physical features of impact craters, such as the ejecta blanket, would improve the planetary community’s ability to differentiate between the two types of craters. …

Characterizations Of Some Classes Of Graphs That Are Nearly Series-Parallel, Victoria Fontaine

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

A series-parallel graph can be built from a single-edge graph by a sequence of series and parallel extensions. The class of such graphs coincides with the class of graphs that do not have the complete graph K₄ as a minor. This dissertation considers a class M₁ of graphs that are close to being series-parallel. In particular, every member of the class has the property that one can obtain a series-parallel graph by adding a new edge and contracting it out, or by splitting a vertex into two vertices whose neighbor sets partition the neighbor set of the original …

Dinoflagellate Cysts Track Eutrophication In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Andrea M. Price, Melissa M. Baustian, R. Eugene Turner, Nancy N. Rabalais, Gail L. Chmura

Faculty Publications

We examined organic-walled dinoflagellate cysts from one 210Pb-dated sediment core and 39 surface sediment samples from the northern Gulf of Mexico to determine the relationship between nutrient enrichment and cyst assemblages in this region characterized by oxygen deficiency. The core spans from 1962 to 1997 and its sampling location is directly influenced by the Mississippi River plume. Surface sediments were collected in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2014 and represent approximately 1 to 4 years of accumulation. A total of 57 cyst taxa were recorded, and four heterotrophic taxa in particular were found to increase in the top section (1986–1997) of …

A Study Of The Urban Red Fox (Vulpes Vulpes) Population In Baton Rouge, Louisiana Using Social Media, Ahsennur Soysal

LSU Master's Theses

Foxes are timid yet resourceful animals that are integrated into many urban environments. Because they are elusive, collecting information about the number of urban foxes, their diet and spatial distribution, their interactions with the ecological community in their urban habitat, as well as residents’ response to them, is difficult. Involving stakeholders to participate in the data collection on wildlife via citizen science on social media is one way to overcome this complication, while simultaneously engaging residents in the ecology happening around them. Therefore, we used social media as the platform to engage the public to document and map the foxes …

Development Of Remote Hydroxylation Via Redox Catalysis And Mild Activation Of Thioglycosides For O-Glycosylation, Kristina Deveaux

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The focus of this dissertation is the development of a C-H functionalization method using redox catalysis and the synthesis of saccharides using thioglycosides. Chapter 1 is a review of C-H functionalization and visible-light photoredox catalysis. Over the years there have been many significant contributions to the field of C-H functionalization. Select examples have been discussed and a foundation for the method developed in chapter 2 has been outlined. Chapter 2 discusses the development and optimization of a C-H functionalization method. This approach uses the Tz^o directing group and Ir(ppy)₃ to activate a remote C-H bond via 1,6- and …

Multimode Approach To Classical And Quantum Diffraction, Zhihao Xiao

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

I have investigated classical diffraction of optical beams with multimode approach, which is a significant improvement upon the traditional Huygens–Fresnel principle based diffraction theory. I have also investigated quantum diffraction with multimode approach, which describes the behavior of multimode quantum state. Multimode approach to classical and quantum diffraction provides a clear mathematical formalism and is verified by numerical simulations. In addition, I present the work on superconducting qubit and oscillator with time-dependent coupling coefficient, with first order correction with finite qubit energy and schemes based on and π pulses.

Electromagnetic Resonant Scattering In Layered Media With Fabrication Errors, Emily Anne Mchenry

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In certain layered electromagnetic media, one can construct a waveguide that supports a harmonic electromagnetic field at a frequency that is embedded in the continuous spectrum. When the structure is perturbed, this embedded eigenvalue moves into the complex plane and becomes a “complex resonance” frequency. The real and imaginary parts of this complex frequency have physical meaning. They lie behind anomalous scattering behaviors known collectively as “Fano resonance”, and people are interested in tuning them to specific values in optical devices. The mathematics involves spectral theory and analytic perturbation theory and is well understood [16], at least on a theoretical …

Evidence Of Subglacial Brine Inflow And Wind-Induced Mixing From High Resolution Temperature Measurements In Lake Bonney, Antarctica, Jade Lawrence

LSU Master's Theses

Hypersaline brine beneath Taylor Glacier enters proglacial West Lobe Lake Bonney (WLB) subglacially as well as from Blood Falls, a surface discharge point at the Taylor Glacier terminus. The brine strongly influences the water column of WLB. Because of the extremely high salinities below the chemocline in WLB, density is determined almost entirely by salinity and temperature can be used as a passive tracer. Cold brine intrusions enter WLB at the glacier face and intrude in to the water column at the depth of neutral buoyancy, where they can be identified by anomalously cold temperatures at that depth. This study …

Combining Downhole And Sediment Logging To Understand Spatial Variability In Grain-Size, Facies, And Reservoir Quality Of A Large-Scale Mississippi River Point Bar, False River, Louisiana, Elizabeth D. Olson

LSU Master's Theses

Although the general processes by which meandering river point bars are constructed have been known for some time, there is a lack of clarity regarding why small-scale heterogeneities develop. This is especially true in the largest meandering river systems, which are equivalent to some of the most important hydrocarbon reservoirs in the world. In this study, we evaluate the stratigraphic architecture of the 80 km² False River Point Bar System on the Lower Mississippi River and use the knowledge gained to better comprehend point bar construction at different phases. Previous studies of small to medium-scale systems have been unable …

Nanopatterns Of Zinc Phthalocyanines, Gold Nanoparticles, And Porphyrins Prepared Using Particle Lithography: Characterization Of Patterning Steps With Scanning Probe Microscopy, Ashley Marie Taylor

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The growth and self-assembly of molecules on surfaces can be directly visualized at the molecular level using studies which combine nanoscale lithography and high-resolution imaging. Nanopatterning provides a unique and practical approach for direct views of surface changes after the key chemical steps of nanopatterning, providing landmarks and baselines for measuring growth in vertical and lateral dimensions. Controlling the arrangement of materials on surfaces at the nanoscale can be achieved using particle lithography. Arrays of well-defined nanostructures can be prepared with reproducible geometries and arrangement. Results for the preparation of nanopatterns produced with particle lithography are presented using high resolution …

Floodplain Impacts On Water Quality: A Case Study In Southern Louisiana, Emily Delduco

LSU Master's Theses

The quantity and quality of dissolved carbon delivered to coastal margins by rivers is an important component of global carbon cycling. The Atchafalaya River (AR) discharges ~25% of the flow of the Mississippi River (MR) and the total flow of the Red River (RR) into the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) annually while flowing through the largest bottomland swamp in North America. This provides a unique opportunity to study floodplain impacts on dissolved carbon processes in a large river system. The research aimed to: (1) determine DIC and DOC transport and processing by a river swamp basin under varied seasons and …

Issues Related To Carbon Dioxide Pipeline Transportation Infrastructure In Louisiana, Michael Allen Layne Iii

LSU Master's Theses

There is no single solution to mitigate anthropogenic climate change; a multifaceted approach with economic incentives is needed. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is one such solution which provides an economic incentive, in the capture and sale of oil, for sequestering CO₂ underground. While carbon capture and subsequent geological injection are both mature technologies, there has been little discussion or appreciation for the role of pipelines. The current CO₂ pipeline infrastructure will need to significantly expand in order to accommodate increasing EOR production. However, pipeline construction costs, and institutional factors impacting development, may be …

Coupled Plasmon/Molecule Dynamics Near Core-Shell Nanoparticles: Synthesis, Ultrafast Characterization, And Quantum/Classical Modeling, Holden Tyler Smith

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, the resonance coupling of chromaphoric dyes adsorbed on the surface of plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) are investigated using a combined theoretical and experi- mental approach. Colloidal gold, gold-silver core-shell, silver-gold core-shell, and gold-silver- gold core-shell-shell NPs are considered. These NPs are thiolated with mercaptosuccinic acid, and malachite green dyes are adsorbed to the surface of the nanoparticle (NP) via elec- trostatic interactions. Second harmonic generation is used to determine the surface to the isotherm of the molecular dyes to the colloidal nanoparticle surface. Adsorption isotherms show that the SHG intensity increases as the concentration of dye increases, reaching …

How Dredge Pits Evolve Over Time: A Look At Their Geomorphologic Evolution And Infilling Processes, Patrick Robichaux

LSU Master's Theses

As coastal environments become more susceptible to land loss through accelerating sea level rise and subsidence, new restoration methods harnessing borrowed sediment are more valuable than ever. Mud-capped dredge pits (MCDPs) are a relatively new source of restoration-quality sediment that has only recently been utilized for beach and barrier island restorations in Louisiana. Because MCDPs have been in use for less than two decades in only a handful sites, little is understood about their evolution over decadal timescales. To improve our understanding of MCDPs after they are dredged, we have conducted a suite of geophysical surveys including bathymetry, sidescan sonar, …

An Enhanced Bridge Weigh-In-Motion Methodology And A Bayesian Framework For Predicting Extreme Traffic Load Effects Of Bridges, Yang Yu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In the past few decades, the rapid growth of traffic volume and weight, and the aging of transportation infrastructures have raised serious concerns over transportation safety. Under these circumstances, vehicle overweight enforcement and bridge condition assessment through structural health monitoring (SHM) have become critical to the protection of the safety of the public and transportation infrastructures. The main objectives of this dissertation are to: (1) develop an enhanced bridge weigh-in-motion (BWIM) methodology that can be integrated into the SHM system for overweight enforcement and monitoring traffic loading; (2) present a Bayesian framework to predict the extreme traffic load effects (LEs) …

Paleoenvironmental Variation And Provenance Records From Neogene Deep Sea Sediment Of The South China Sea, Chang Liu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

I employed several paleoenvironmental proxies by utilizing deep sea sediment from the largest marginal basin in east Asia, namely the South China Sea (SCS), to reconstruct the long term paleoenvironmental variation in SE Asia since the Neogene. Sediments deposited within the SCS were mainly delivered by several major fluvial systems whose catchment basins cover several geological blocks in SE Asia. By analyzing the sediment’s geochemical and mineralogical characteristics, several indices which are affected by the source of the sedimentary influx, as well as the weathering state could be built and applied to constrain my paleoenvironmental reconstructions

Two deep sea drilling …

When, How, And Why Did The West Antarctic Ice Sheet Retreat In The Ross Sea Since The Last Glacial Maximum Using Foraminiferal And Porewater Geochemistry, Matthew Decesare

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Antarctic Ice Sheets (AIS) began to retreat from their Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) position sometime after 19,000 years ago. However, the corrosive waters circulating around Antarctica has prevented the recovery of radiocarbon-dateable material, hindering the development of deglacial chronologies. During Expedition NBP1502B to the eastern Ross Sea, an unprecedented quantity of fossil foraminifera and bivalves were recovered. Radiocarbon-dated specimens have been used to constrain the timing of West-AIS retreat from Whales Deep basin and Ross Bank. Whales Deep samples show that the WAIS retreated from its LGM position on the continental shelf edge by 14,700 ± 400 calibrated radiocarbon …

Self-Assembly Mechanisms Of Organosilanes And Porphyrins Investigated With Scanning Probe Microscopy, Phillip Charles Chambers Ii

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation details the development of new fabrication strategies for the preparation of spatially selective surfaces by combining techniques of particle lithography and scanning probe microscopy (SPM). This combination of lithography and nanoscale surface characterization was applied to study the mechanisms of molecular level surface-assembly of organosilanes and porphyrin on surfaces of Si(111). Particle lithography was used to investigate the surface assembly of 4-chloromethylphenyltrichlorosilane (CMPS) within exposed sites of nanoholes in selected solvents and at selected temperatures to gain insight into the details of self-polymerization. Nanopillars of CMPS were generated under selected conditions of solvent and temperature and characterized with …

The Moments Of Lévy's Area Using A Sticky Shuffle Hopf Algebra, Robin Hudson, Uwe Schauz, Yue Wu

Communications on Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Essential Sets For Random Operators Constructed From An Arratia Flow, Andrey A. Dorogovtsev, Ia. A. Korenovska

Communications on Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

One Dimensional Complex Ornstein-Uhlenbeck Operator, Yong Chen

Communications on Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Perpetual Integral Functionals Of Brownian Motion And Blowup Of Semilinear Systems Of Spdes, Eugenio Guerrero, José Alfredo López-Mindela

Communications on Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

A Note On Time-Dependent Additive Functionals, Adrien Barrasso, Francesco Russo

Communications on Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Assessing Morphodynamics Of The Lower Mississippi River From 1985 To 2015 With Remote Sensing And Gis Techniques, Bo Wang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Lower Mississippi River is one of the most highly engineered rivers in the world. The river is now completely regulated by a combination of levees, artificial cutoffs, bank revetments, and dike fields; however, the river engineering has also complicated the geomorphological response to the sediment brought in the river. This dissertation research examined morphodynamics of the middle portion of the Lower Mississippi River from Vicksburg, Mississippi (river kilometer: 737) to Red River Landing, Louisiana (river kilometer: 486) to elucidate river engineering effects on sediment transport, storage, and distribution. The Old River Control Structure (ORCS) diverts approximately 25% of the …

New Synthetic Reactions Towards Global Chlorination And Enamides Functionalization, Mirza Ardella Saputra

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on two main projects, global chlorination and enamide functionalization, which both encompass in cationic intermediates. Inspired by the desires to find a new chlorination method, global chlorination project is emphasized in chapter one and chapter two, in which chapter one details various known chlorine-containing natural products, including alkyl chlorides and vinyl chlorides. This chapter also describes the previously known protocols to synthesize alkyl chlorides in the attempts of chlorosulfolipids total syntheses, as well as several known reactions to synthesize vinyl chlorides that are both important functional groups in organic synthesis. Chapter two depicts our novel synthetic reaction …

Overbank Deposition Of Sand And Mud Within Two Point Bars Bound By The Mississippi River Levee System: Implications For Coastal Restoration Sediment Budgets, Christopher Magliolo

LSU Master's Theses

As ongoing Mississippi River sediment diversion projects are being developed and planned, the availability of sand and mud for use in the lower Mississippi River Delta is being calculated and budgeted. This project attempts to quantify the amount of sand and mud being lost from the lower Mississippi River past the Old River Control Structure in the remaining unleveed floodplains, an area that encompasses 270 km². Two land masses were chosen along each bank of this reach of the Mississippi River: Raccourci Island (west bank) and the Cat Island National Wildlife Refuge (east bank). Seventeen sediment cores were …

Studying The Reaction 34ar(Alpha,P)37k And Its Impact On Xrb Nucleosynthesis And Observables, Amber C. Lauer

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Type I X-Ray bursts (XRB’s) are a site of nucleosynthesis for some proton-rich elements up to A=100. These stellar explosions occur on the surface of a neutron star in a Low- Mass X-ray Binary accreting H- and He-rich material. During accretion nuclear burning occurs through stable processes such as the hot CNO (HCNO) cycles, but at some critical accretion condition the the HCNO cycles are bypassed through a breakout reaction. This triggers the thermonuclear runaway of the XRB. During the burst, nucleosynthesis on certain proton-rich nuclei, called (α, p) waiting points, can stall which could stall the energy generation and …

Hierarchical Fusion Based Deep Learning Framework For Lung Nodule Classification, Kazim Sekeroglu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Lung cancer is the leading cancer type that causes the mortality in both men and women. Computer aided detection (CAD) and diagnosis systems can play a very important role for helping the physicians in cancer treatments. This dissertation proposes a CAD framework that utilizes a hierarchical fusion based deep learning model for detection of nodules from the stacks of 2D images. In the proposed hierarchical approach, a decision is made at each level individually employing the decisions from the previous level. Further, individual decisions are computed for several perspectives of a volume of interest (VOI). This study explores three different …

Non-Centrosymmetric Superconductivity And Magnetism In The Presence Of Broken Symmetries, Mojammel Alam Khan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Non-centrosymmetric (NC) superconducting and magnetic compounds have been synthesized and investigated using magnetic, specific heat, and transport measurements, as well as by neutron scattering and quantum oscillations. The crystal structures of NC compounds are defined by the lack of an inversion center. In NC superconductors, a finite antisymmetric spin orbit coupling originating from broken inversion symmetry results in unconventional Cooper pairing. Instead of a single spin channel, the order parameter is a mixture of spin-singlet and spin-triplet states. For NC magnetic compounds, the antisymmetric and isotropic spin interactions compete, leading to a helical ground state.

We have studied the NC …

Energy-Constrained Quantum Communication And Digital Dynamical Decoupling, Haoyu Qi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This is a two-part thesis glued together by an everlasting theme in Quantum Information Science \-- to save the quantum state, or the information stored in it, from unavoidably environment-induced noise. The first part of this thesis studies the ultimate rate of reliably transmitting information, stored in quantum systems, through a noisy evolution. Specifically, we consider communication over optical links, upon which future inter-city quantum communication networks will be built. We show how to treat the infinite-dimensional bosonic system rigorously and establish the theory of energy-constrained private and quantum communication over quantum channels. Our result represents important progress in the …