Digital Commons Network^™

"I'M Not Your Ride Or Die": A Qualitative Study Of Black Women's Experiences In Intimate Marketplaces, Alana Jamelle Peck

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Black women’s marriage rates have consistently been on the decline since the 1960’s and currently, Black women are the least likely to get married across all races and genders (Bureau 2020). Scholars have been using these statistics to tell monolithic narratives of Black womanhood, and even blame Black women for larger issues within the Black community (Collins 2000, Johnson and Loscocco 2015; Moynihan 1965). Prior scholars have also attempted to provide solutions to this problem, while never even approaching Black women, to suggest ways that they can increase their marriage rates and consequently uplift Black families and the Black community …

Longitudinal Associations Between Housing Instability, Primary Caregiver's Mental Health, Parenting Skills, And Child Behavior Problems: A Latent Growth Modeling Approach, Xi Du

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Children who grow up in disruptive environments have heightened vulnerability to psychological and behavioral difficulties, which may influence overall well-being through the course of their lives. This study combined a life course perspective with Conger’s family stress model to investigate the longitudinal associations between housing instability, primary caregiver’s mental health, parenting skills, and child internalizing/externalizing behavior problems by unpacking dynamic change from a focal child’s early childhood to adolescence in each factor.

Data came from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and its Child Development Supplement survey. The analytic sample comprises 783 children who aged 3-7 at enrollment with consistent …

Improved Building-Specific Flood Risk Assessment And Implications Of Depth-Damage Function Selection, Ehab Gnan, Carol J. Friedland, Md Adilur Rahim, Rubayet Bin Mostafiz, Robert V. Rohli, Fatemeh Orooji, Arash Taghinezhad, Jasmin Mcelwee

Faculty Publications

Average annual loss (AAL) is traditionally used as the basis of assessing flood risk and evaluating risk mitigation measures. This research presents an improved implementation to estimate building-specific AAL, with the flood hazard of a building represented by the Gumbel extreme value distribution. AAL is then calculated by integrating the area under the overall loss-exceedance probability curve using trapezoidal Riemann sums. This implementation is compared with existing AAL estimations from flood risk assessment. A sensitivity analysis is conducted to examine the variability in AAL results based on depth-damage function (DDF) choice. To demonstrate the methodology, a one-story single-family residence is …

Application Of Organic Fertilizers For Lawn Establishment And Maintenance In Louisiana, Matthew Lambert

LSU Master's Theses

Landscape contractors are increasingly interested in organic products for Louisiana's residential and commercial turfgrass areas. However, the use, motivations, and barriers to adopting organic practices in the commercial turfgrass and landscape industry are undocumented. A survey with Louisiana Turfgrass Association (LTA) members to gauge their perceptions on current and future use of organic products in Louisiana was performed; and a field trial was conducted to evaluate organic fertilizers during turfgrass establishment. Substantial majorities of turfgrass professionals are currently applying organic fertilizers and believe organic product use will increase due to consumer demands, potential governmental regulation, and the belief that they …

The Effects Of Drought And Shade On Bottomland Hardwood Regeneration, Charles Joseph Pell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Floodplain forests support a high diversity of tree species adapted to regenerate under fluctuating water and light availability. Regeneration regulates species composition, and shade and flood tolerance influence the likelihood of regeneration. Regeneration failure of shade-intolerant and flood-tolerant tree species commonly occurs in southcentral and southeastern floodplain forests of the United States, also known as bottomland hardwoods (BLHs). In many BLHs reduced flooding has resulted in a dryer floodplain. These changes in flooding are linked to recent shifts in species composition. The mechanisms controlling regeneration in BLHs and these composition shifts are poorly understood. In a controlled germination experiment, I …

Evaluating Serverless Computing, Charitra Maharjan

LSU Master's Theses

Function as a Service (FaaS) is gaining admiration because of its way of deploying the computations to serverless backends in the different clouds. It transfers the complexity of provisioning and allocating the necessary resources for an application to the cloud providers. The cloud providers also give an illusion of always availability of resources to the users. Among the cloud providers, AWS serverless platform offers a new paradigm for developing cloud applications without worrying about the underlying hardware infrastructure. It manages not only the resource provisioning and scaling of an application but also provides an opportunity to reimagine the cloud infrastructure …

Canopy Arthropod Responses To Repeated Canopy Opening In A Wet Tropical Forest, Manoj Pandey, Timothy D. Schowalter

Faculty Publications

With predictions of increased frequency of intense hurricanes, it is increasingly crucial to understand how biotic and abiotic components of forests will be affected. This study describes canopy arthropod responses to repeated experimental and natural canopy opening at the Luquillo Experimental Forest Long-term Ecological Research Site (LTER) in Puerto Rico. The canopy trimming experiment (CTE1) treatments were started in 2004, and a second trimming (CTE2) was conducted in 2014, to study effects of increased hurricane frequency at the site. Paired disturbed plots with canopy trimmed (trim) and undisturbed plots with no trimming (no trim) were replicated in three experimental blocks. …

Increasing Bridge Durability And Service Life With Lidar Enhanced Unmanned Aerial Systems (Uas), Fernando Moreu, Mahsa Sanei, Chris Lippitt

Publications

Bridge construction inspections require quantitative measurements and location information. The conventional approach is visual inspection, which in general, is rather time-consuming, expensive due to traffic closure, subjective, and needs special access. Therefore an automated rebar layout detection algorithm was developed to quickly extract quantitative rebar layout information from the LiDAR data. This systematic method can automatically cluster the bridge elements from a 3D point cloud by using LiDAR-equipped UAS data collection and unsupervised machine learning techniques. A new automated inspection system using a LIDAR-equipped UAS can eventually if developed and tested be more reliable as well as less expensive. In …

Relational Turbulence And Social Network Engagement During The Summer Of Covid-19: A Repeated Measures, Dyadic Analysis, Kellie S. Brisini, Denise H. Solomon

Faculty Publications

Background/Purpose: Relational turbulence theory suggests that changes in and around relationships create the potential for relational turbulence when everyday routines and scripts are upended and communication becomes polarized. In turn, perceptions of a romantic relationship as chaotic or tumultuous can influence a person’s engagement with their social network. Alternately, previous research also suggests that engagement with friends and family has the potential to influence married partner’s relationship quality. Research Design: This study examined these propositions among a sample of married couples (N = 64, 128 individuals) whose daily experiences and relationship dynamics changed during the COVID-19 lockdown period. Results/Conclusions: Based …

The Need For A Framework Addressing The Temporal Aspects Of Fish Sperm Motility Leading To Community-Level Standardization, Harvey Blackburn, Leticia Torres, Yue Liu, Terrence R. Tiersch

Faculty Publications

Motility is a widely available parameter that can be used to assess sperm quality of aquatic species. Sperm from fishes with external fertilization usually undergo a dynamic and short-lived period of motility after activation. The common practice of assigning a single value at an arbitrary peak of motility presents challenges for reproducibility, community-level standardization, and comparisons across studies. This study aimed to explore statistical approaches to standardize motility reporting, and to develop an initial framework for community-level standards. Sperm samples from 14 zebrafish (Danio rerio) with a total of 21,705 cells were analyzed by use of computer-assisted sperm analysis with …

Icam-1 Abundance Is Increased In Pancreatic Islets Of Hyperglycemic Female Nod Mice And Is Rapidly Upregulated By Nf-Κb In Pancreatic B-Cells, Thomas M. Martin, Susan J. Burke, Heidi M. Batdorf, David H. Burk, Sujoy Ghosh, Samuel D. Dupuy, Michael D. Karlstad, J. Jason Collier

Division of Basic Science Faculty Publications

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is classified as an autoimmune disease where pancreatic b-cells are specifically targeted by cells of the immune system. The molecular mechanisms underlying this process are not completely understood. Herein, we identified that the Icam1 gene and ICAM-1 protein were selectively elevated in female NOD mice relative to male mice, fitting with the sexual dimorphism of diabetes onset in this key mouse model of T1D. In addition, ICAM-1 abundance was greater in hyperglycemic female NOD mice than in age-matched normoglycemic female NOD mice. Moreover, we discovered that the Icam1 gene was rapidly upregulated in response to IL-1β …

Reply To G Taubes, Mi Friedman, And V Torres-Carot Et Al., Kevin D. Hall, I. Sadaf Farooqi, Jeffery M. Friedman, Samuel Klein, Ruth J.F. Loos, David J. Mangelsdorf, Stephen O’Rahilly, Eric Ravussin, Leanne M. Redman, Donna H. Ryan, John R. Speakman, Deirdre K. Tobias

Clinical Research Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Obesity Management In The Primary Prevention Of Hepatocellular Carcinoma, Elizabeth R.M. Zunica, Elizabeth C. Heintz, Christopher L. Axelrod, John P. Kirwan

Division of Basic Science Faculty Publications

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most frequent primary hepatic malignancy and a leading cause of cancer-related death globally. HCC is associated with an indolent clinical presentation, resulting in frequent advanced stage diagnoses where surgical resection or transplant therapies are not an option and medical therapies are largely ineffective at improving survival. As such, there is a critical need to identify and enhance primary prevention strategies to mitigate HCC-related morbidity and mortality. Obesity is an independent risk factor for the onset and progression of HCC. Furthermore, obesity is a leading cause of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), the fasting growing etiological factor of …

Density Of States And Delocalization For Discrete Magnetic Random Schrödinger Operators, Simon Becker, Rui Han

Faculty Publications

We study discrete magnetic random Schrödinger operators on the square and honeycomb lattice. For the non-random magnetic operator on the hexagonal lattice with any rational magnetic flux, we show that the middle two dispersion surfaces exhibit Dirac cones. We then derive an asymptotic expansion for the density of states on the honeycomb lattice for oscillations of arbitrary rational magnetic flux. This allows us, as a corollary, to rigorously study the quantum Hall effect and conclude dynamical delocalization close to the conical point under disorder. We obtain similar results for the discrete random Schrödinger operator on the Z²-lattice with …

Interviewing For Residency Positions While Completing A Graduate Degree: Considerations For Graduate Students, Mentors, And Program Directors, Wayne Newhauser, Garrett Pitcher, Christine Swanson, Samuel G. Armato, Hania Al-Hallaq

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Alteration Of Biomolecular Conformation By Aluminum-Implications For Protein Misfolding Disease, Yuhai Zhao, Aileen I. Pogue, Peter N. Alexandrov, Leslie G. Butler, Wenhong Li, Vivian R. Jaber, Walter J. Lukiw

Faculty Publications

The natural element aluminum possesses a number of unique biochemical and biophysical properties that make this highly neurotoxic species deleterious towards the structural integrity, conformation, reactivity and stability of several important biomolecules. These include aluminum’s (i) small ionic size and highly electrophilic nature, having the highest charge density of any metallic cation with a Z²/r of 18 (ionic charge +3, radius 0.5 nm); (ii) inclination to form extremely stable electrostatic bonds with a tendency towards covalency; (iii) ability to interact irreversibly and/or significantly slow down the exchange-rates of complex aluminum–biomolecular interactions; (iv) extremely dense electropositive charge with one …

The Curve Not Taken: Effects Of Covid-19 International Comparison News, Seon Woo Kim, Martina Santia, Raymond J. Pingree, Ayla Oden, Kirill Bryanov, Jessica Wyers

Faculty Publications

International news can inform people not only about what is happening in other countries, but also about how their own country could benefit from policies that have proved successful elsewhere. Specifically, international policy comparison news, or news that compares the policies of two or more countries on the same issue, is a potentially important but underutilized and understudied form of news content. We use an experiment to test effects of exposure to news comparing the COVID-19 pandemic policies of the U.S. versus South Korea, and find that this increases knowledge of policy differences between the two countries, support for adopting …

Effectiveness Assessment Of E-Ticketing Technology In Construction Of Transportation Projects, Sharareh Kermanshachi, Karthik Subramanya

Publications

The construction of highway infrastructure has devoted significant resources towards e-Construction to reduce the paperwork and automate the tasks in daily operations. Electronic Ticketing (e-Ticketing) is one such component of e-Construction that aids in the digital transfer of material tickets such as asphalt and concrete which accounts for more than fifty per cent of construction costs. Despite the benefits of e-Ticketing, many state departments and agencies are unwilling to transition into this technology. No studies have identified the cause of the delay in the implementation process, developed a framework to comprehend the platform's full potential, quantified savings, and suggested strategies …

Development Of Distress Index Prediction Models For Rehabilitation Treatments In Louisiana Using Advanced Machine Learning Techniques, Momen R. Mousa, Marwa Hassan

Publications

Performance prediction models are used by state agencies to predict future trends in distress indices, hence, determining the required maintenance and/or rehabilitation treatment as well as the deterioration rate and remaining pavement service life. However, most of these models are based on a limited number of parameters and cannot predict the performance distress indices reliably. Such limitation resulted in having, most of the time, a maximum prediction period of five years. As a solution and coping with the ever-increasing size of pavement data, machine learning techniques have become a promising alternative. The objective of this study was to develop a …

Effects Of Doping, Hydrostatic Pressure, And Thermal Quenching On The Phase Transitions And Magnetocaloric Properties In Mn1- X Cox Nige, Tej Poudel Chhetri, Jing Han Chen, Anthony T. Grant, David P. Young, Igor Dubenko, Saikat Talapatra, Naushad Ali, Shane Stadler

Faculty Publications

The effects of doping, hydrostatic pressure, and thermal quenching on the phase transitions and magnetocaloric properties of the Mn1-xCoxNiGe system have been investigated. Cobalt doping on the Mn site shifted the martensitic structural transition toward lower temperature until it was ultimately absent, leaving only a magnetic transition from a ferromagnetic (FM) to a paramagnetic (PM) state in the high-temperature hexagonal phase. Co-occurrence of the magnetic and structural transitions to form a first-order magnetostructural transition (MST) from the FM orthorhombic to the PM hexagonal phase was observed in samples with 0.05 < x < 0.20. An additional antiferromagnetic-ferromagnetic-like transition was observed in the martensite phase for 0.05 < x < 0.10, which gradually vanished with increasing Co concentration (x > 0.10) or magnetic field (H > 0.5 T). The application of …

The Construction And Estimation Of Hidden Semi-Markov Models, Kurdstan Abdullah, John Van Der Hoek

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

The Thermodynamics Of A Stochastic Geometry Model With Applications To Non-Extensive Statistics, O.K. Kazemi, A. Pourdarvish, J. Sadeghi

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Electric Field Driven Co-Assembly And Transport Of Colloids Using Active-Passive Interaction, Brishty Deb Choudhury

LSU Master's Theses

Over the past few decades, the out-of-equilibrium transport and assembly of colloidal particles have been drawing significant interest due to their myriad applications in biology, engineering, and physics. In the absence of any external force, micro and nanoparticles perform Brownian motion in dispersion and are termed as passive colloids. In contrast, active colloids are a class of particles where a net imbalance of fluid flow around their surface drives their net migration in space when subjected to an external electric field. While several studies have shown the ability to program the dynamics of active colloids using an external electric field, …

Creating A Public Space For Georeferencing Sanborn Maps: A Louisiana Case Study, Adam Cox

LSU Master's Theses

As institutional archives digitize their historical map collections and make them publicly available online, new methods for engaging with these materials emerge. Georeferencing the maps transforms their content from static images to dynamic map overlays, and allows for the extraction of geographic data like building footprints or place name coordinates. Many organizations have turned to crowdsourcing to georeference their large holdings, and this thesis approaches crowdsourced georeferencing from the perspective of participatory heritage, taking much inspiration from the idea of the archival commons. To test these ideas, a new extension was created for GeoNode—an open source geospatial content management system—that …

Understanding The Effects Of Socioeconomic Variables, Career Motivation, And Msw Education On Practice Preferences: A Quantitative National Survey Of Msw Students, Tina B. Granger

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Over the past several decades, there has been much debate over the role of social workers in the mental health field. Factors related to career motivation and practice preferences has had limited research and many have attributed materialistic and self-seeking motives as the reason for a social work career choice. Research has shown that there may be a divergence or ‘mission drift’ from traditional social work values and mission of social justice and social change at the systems level. Identifying factors related to career motivation and practice preferences is important in an ever-evolving field such as social work. This study …

“Not Nearly What It Used To Be”: A Mixed Methods Study On Hazing And Organizational Culture In Historically White Fraternities, Kimberly Rogers Davis

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Hazing is a significant concern on college campuses, especially as students continue to die following hazing incidents in student organizations. Fraternities, particularly historically White fraternities (HWFs), have been the site of many recent hazing deaths. However, fraternity and sorority life leaders and advocates often argue that the chapters where hazing tragedies occur are the minority in a broader system that offers numerous contributions to society. Rather than a fraternity or sorority problem, hazing may result from cultural influences within and around the organization. Thus, the purpose of this study is to understand how organizational culture, such as chapter culture and …

Scheduling Many-Task Computing Applications For A Hybrid Cloud, Shifat Perveen Mithila

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

A centralized scheduler can become a bottleneck for placing the tasks of a many-task application on heterogeneous cloud resources. Previously, it was demonstrated that a decentralized vector scheduling approach based on performance measurements can be used successfully for this task placement scenario. In this dissertation, we extend this approach to task placement based on latency measurements. Each node collects performance metrics from its neighbors on an overlay graph, measures the communication latency, and then makes local decisions on where to move tasks. We present a decentralized and a centralized algorithm for configuring the overlay graph based on latency measurements and …

Graph-Based Computational Approach To The Study Of Cancer Pharmacotherapy, Manali Singha

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Recent advances in the analysis of omics data from various cancer cells pave the way for cancer therapy to predict effective drug responses and drug-target interactions based on cell- specific genetic features such as gene expression profiles, mutations, and copy number variations. Because the phenotype of a complex disease, such as cancer, is determined by several factors, it is difficult to predict the best effective treatment for a certain cell line based just on one sort of data, such as genetic traits and drug molecular features. The overall studies in this thesis proposed a graph-based representation of heterogeneous biological data …

Apparatuses, Systems, And Methods For Performing Remote Real-Time Experiments, Paulo J. Waltrich

College of Engineering Patents

Embodiments of the present invention include apparatuses and methods for performing remote experiments in real-time. The method includes sending requests to perform remote experiments for a desired configuration to a first and second facility. The desired configuration may include a first and second configuration. The method includes running a first remote experiment in real-time at the first facility to obtain a first output variable. The first facility may include the first configuration with a first input variable. The method includes simultaneously running a second remote experiment in real-time at a second facility to obtain a second output variable. The second …

The Link Between Intracellular Calcium Signaling And The Nitric Oxide-Dependent Release Of Chloride In Retinal Amacrine Cells, Li Zhong

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Regulation of cytosolic Cl^- is an important determinant in synaptic function. Our lab has discovered that cytosolic Cl^- is regulated not only by transport across the plasma membrane but that Cl^- can also be released from internal Cl^- stores (Hoffpauir et al., 2006) in amacrine cells (ACs). Nitric oxide (NO) is a small molecule neurotransmitter that has been demonstrated to be involved in cytosolic Ca²⁺ elevations and Cl^- regulation via activation of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator (CFTR) (Krishnan et al., 2017). Here, I test the hypothesis that intracellular Ca²⁺ signaling mediates the …