Digital Commons Network^™

The Relationship Between Type Of Parental First Concerns And Severity Of Developmental Delays In Toddlers With Autism Or Developmental Delay, Joshua J. Montrenes

LSU Master's Theses

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by impairments in social communication and the presence of restricted, repetitive behaviors. The impairments which are commonly associated with ASD manifest during early development as delayed speech or impaired social skills, for example. These early indicators are often noticed by parents who convey concern to medical professionals. Research has found associations between these early parental concerns and a later diagnosis of autism, noting their predictive validity. Research has yet to address the relationship between types of parental concerns and developmental functioning. This study examined whether certain parent reported concerns are more predictive of impaired …

Hydrometeorological Responses To Abrupt Land Surface Change Following Hurricane Michael, Shannon Alexis Nelson

LSU Master's Theses

While many of the destructive environmental conditions associated with tropical cyclones are well recognized, tropical cyclone-induced defoliation, a reduction in green leaves and mature vegetation, has been largely overlooked as a source of environmental stress following tropical cyclone passage. The land surface change associated with defoliation reduces evapotranspiration and shade, thus altering boundary layer moisture and energy fluxes that drive the local water cycle, for many months after tropical cyclone passage. Understanding the potential for any hydrometeorological impacts arising from such abrupt land surface change is important for guiding future post-hurricane preparedness and recovery planning in coastal communities.

This thesis …

Evaluation Of Food Safety Practices At Louisiana Summer Feeding Sites And Food Safety Communication Via Social Media During Crises, Peyton E. Haynes

LSU Master's Theses

The United States Department of Agriculture’s Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) provided children under the age of 18 in low-income areas 145 million free meals in 2018 through summer feeding sites. Food safety issues arise for Louisiana feeding sites due to time-temperature controlled foods served, weather patterns in Louisiana, seasonal staff and short operation time, and lack of equipment. The purpose of this study was to assess food safety practices at Louisiana feeding sites through observational study with intention to compare food practices at institutional and noninstitutional sites. A rubric following USDA food safety guidelines based on categories: hot holding, …

The Edwards Model For Fractional Brownian Loops And Starbursts, Wolfgang Bock, Torben Fattler, Ludwig Streit

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Machine Learning Methods For Depression Detection Using Smri And Rs-Fmri Images, Marzieh Sadat Mousavian

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Major Depression Disorder (MDD) is a common disease throughout the world that negatively influences people’s lives. Early diagnosis of MDD is beneficial, so detecting practical biomarkers would aid clinicians in the diagnosis of MDD. Having an automated method to find biomarkers for MDD is helpful even though it is difficult. The main aim of this research is to generate a method for detecting discriminative features for MDD diagnosis based on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data.

In this research, representational similarity analysis provides a framework to compare distributed patterns and obtain the similarity/dissimilarity of brain regions. Regions are obtained by either …

Musical Gesture Through The Human Computer Interface: An Investigation Using Information Theory, Michael Vincent Blandino

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study applies information theory to investigate human ability to communicate using continuous control sensors with a particular focus on informing the design of digital musical instruments. There is an active practice of building and evaluating such instruments, for instance, in the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) conference community. The fidelity of the instruments can depend on the included sensors, and although much anecdotal evidence and craft experience informs the use of these sensors, relatively little is known about the ability of humans to control them accurately. This dissertation addresses this issue and related concerns, including continuous control performance …

Semantics-Guided Human Motion Modeling In Virtual Reality Environment, Matthew Korban

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Human Motion Modeling is essential in Computer Animation and Human-Computer Interaction. This dissertation studies how to enhance the speed and robustness of Human Motion Modeling in Virtual Reality (VR) environments. Specifically, we aim to design a pipeline to effectively capture and use semantic action information to guide the motion capturing from users in physical worlds and its transfer onto digital avatars in VR environments. To recognize the user's action, we first proposed a new Dynamic Directed Graph Convolutional Network (DDGCN) to model spatial and temporal features from users' skeletal representations. The DDGCN consists of several dynamic feature modeling modules to …

Developing Student Agency In The Choral Classroom: A Case Study, Danielle E. Laird

LSU Master's Theses

This multiple-case study sought to describe how student agency is cultivated within two high school choir programs. Research questions were: (a) In what ways did participating teachers incorporate student agency? (b) How did their students describe their experience? (c) What opportunities/difficulties emerged when students assumed leadership and decision-making roles? (d) Why do participating teachers offer these to students? (e) How do opportunities for student agency serve student learning and program goals? Data collection included semi-structured teacher interviews in two stages, as well as a student questionnaire. Other data included choir handbooks, student leadership information, social media presence, and classroom signs. …

Error Prevention In Sensors And Sensor Systems, Pedro J. Chacon Dominguez

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Achievements in all fields of engineering and fabrication methods have led towards optimization and integration of multiple sensing devices into a concise system. These advances have caused significant innovation in various commercial, industrial, and research efforts. Integrations of subsystems have important applications for sensor systems in particular. The need for reporting and real time awareness of a device’s condition and surroundings have led to sensor systems being implemented in a wide variety of fields. From environmental sensors for agriculture, to object characterization and biomedical sensing, the application for sensor systems has impacted all modern facets of innovation. With these innovations, …

Alòs Type Decomposition Formula For Barndorff-Nielsen And Shephard Model, Takuji Arai

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Virtual Worlds: Social Interactions Among Online Gamers Through Voice Chat, Omar Bradley Ictech Ii

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Online gaming scholarship has rarely focused on the micro sociological aspects of virtual worlds as much of the research on online games is undertaken by psychologists and scholars in other fields. When a sociological lens is employed in analyzing social interactions that occur in virtual worlds, new understandings of social phenomena in virtual worlds can come to light. My research draws upon multiple sociological theories to make sense of data collect via in-depth interviews and participant observations in an attempt to understand how voice chat influences relationship formation and maintenance, gender relations among online gamers, and how online gamers use …

Mixed Generalized Fractional Brownian Motion, Shaykhah Alajmi, Ezzedine Mliki

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

A Comprehensive Study On Printed Circuit Board Backdoor Coupling In High Intensity Radiated Fields Environments, Ryan Patrick Tortorich

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Due to the prevalence of unintentional electromagnetic interference (EMI) and the growth of intentional electromagnetic interference (IEMI) or high power microwave (HPM) sources, it is now more important than ever to understand how electronic systems are affected by high intensity radiated fields (HIRF) environments. Both historic events and experimental testing have demonstrated that HIRF environments are capable of disrupting and potentially damaging critical systems including but not limited to civil and military aircraft, industrial control systems (ICS), and internet of things (IoT) devices. However, there is limited understanding on the complex electromagnetic interactions that lead to such effects. This study …

Exact Solutions To Optimal Control Problems For Wiener Processes With Exponential Jumps, Mario Lefebvre

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Delivering Bad News: Crisis Communication Methods In Academic Libraries, Brittany O'Neill, Rebecca Kelley

Faculty Publications

This exploratory study analyzed the specific crisis communication methods of academic libraries. A survey was sent to library staff at Association of Research Libraries-member colleges and universities to describe if, who, when, and how they communicated bad news to their stakeholders for major, minor, and emerging crises. The findings show that respondents used multiple communication strategies, which varied based on the crisis. The data show that libraries communicated journal and database cancellations and health and safety emergencies more slowly than access issues and were more likely not to communicate those crises at all. Respondents also more frequently chose to communicate …

Exploring The Electoral Impact Of Sexual Scandal On Four Recent Political Candidates: Cal Cunningham, Donald Trump, David Vitter, And Bill Clinton, Madeline Mckenzie Connelly

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Performance Measurements Within Asynchronous Task-Based Runtime Systems: A Double White Dwarf Merger As An Application, Patrick Diehl, Dominic Marcello, Parsa Amini, Hartmut Kaiser, Sagiv Shiber, Geoffrey C. Clayton, Juhan Frank, Gregor Dais, Dirk Pfluger, David Eder, Alice Koniges, Kevin Huck

Faculty Publications

Analyzing performance within asynchronous many-task-based runtime systems is challenging because millions of tasks are launched concurrently. Especially for long-term runs, the amount of data collected becomes overwhelming. We study HPX and its performance-counter framework and autonomic performance environment for Exascale to collect performance data and energy consumption. We added HPX application-specific performance counters to the Octo-Tiger full 3-D adaptive multigrid code astrophysics application. This enables the combined visualization of physical and performance data to highlight bottlenecks with respect to different solvers. We examine the overhead introduced by these measurements, which is around 1%, with respect to the overall application runtime. …

Citations Versus Expert Opinions: Citation Analysis Of Featured Reviews Of The American Mathematical Society, Lawrence Smolinsky, Daniel S. Sage, Aaron J. Lercher, Aaron Cao

Faculty Publications

Peer review and citation metrics are two means of gauging the value of scientific research, but the lack of publicly available peer review data makes the comparison of these methods difficult. Mathematics can serve as a useful laboratory for considering these questions because as an exact science, there is a narrow range of reasons for citations. In mathematics, virtually all published articles are post-publication reviewed by mathematicians in Mathematical Reviews (MathSciNet) and so the data set was essentially the Web of Science mathematics publications from 1993 to 2004. For a decade, especially important articles were singled out in Mathematical Reviews …

Conceptus Metabolomic Profiling Reveals Stage-Specific Phenotypes Leading Up To Pregnancy Recognition In Cattle†, Constantine A. Simintiras, José M. Sánchez, Michael Mcdonald, Elena O'Callaghan, Ahmed A. Aburima, Patrick Lonergan

Faculty Publications

Reproductive efficiency in livestock is a major driver of sustainable food production. The poorly understood process of ruminant conceptus elongation (a) prerequisites maternal pregnancy recognition, (b) is essential to successful pregnancy establishment, and (c) coincides with a period of significant conceptus mortality. Conceptuses at five key developmental stages between Days 8-16 were recovered and cultured in vitro for 6 h prior to conditioned media analysis by untargeted ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectroscopy. This global temporal biochemical interrogation of the ex situ bovine conceptus unearths two antithetical stage-specific metabolic phenotypes during tubular (metabolically retentive) vs. filamentous (secretory) development. Moreover, the …

Circadian Rhythms In Legumes: What Do We Know And What Else Should We Explore?, Hazel Marie Kugan, Nur Ardiyana Rejab, Nurul Amylia Sahruzaini, Jennifer Ann Harikrishna, Niranjan Baisakh, Acga Cheng

Faculty Publications

The natural timing devices of organisms, commonly known as biological clocks, are composed of specific complex folding molecules that interact to regulate the circadian rhythms. Circadian rhythms, the changes or processes that follow a 24‐h light–dark cycle, while endogenously programmed, are also influenced by environmental factors, especially in sessile organisms such as plants, which can impact ecosystems and crop productivity. Current knowledge of plant clocks emanates primarily from research on Arabidopsis, which identified the main components of the circadian gene regulation network. Nonetheless, there remain critical knowledge gaps related to the molecular components of circadian rhythms in important crop groups, …

Restoring Trust In Truth-Seekers: Effects Of Op/Eds Defending Journalism And Justice, Raymond J. Pingree, Martina Santia, Kirill Bryanov, Brian K. Watson

Faculty Publications

A healthy democracy requires trust that people can be impartial in important truth-seeking institutions including journalism, justice, and science. Recently some U.S. elites have adopted alarmingly extreme rhetoric against truth-seekers, denouncing mainstream journalism as fake news, criminal investigations as partisan witch-hunts, climate science as a hoax, and career civil servants as a deep state conspiracy. In response, some news organizations have taken the unusual step of publishing op/eds defending these institutions. Two experiments tested effects of such op/eds. In study 1, participants spent twelve days using a purpose-built news portal containing real, timely news with random assignment to the availability …

Mobile App Privacy In Software Engineering Research: A Systematic Mapping Study, Fahimeh Ebrahimi, Miroslav Tushev, Anas Mahmoud

Faculty Publications

Context: Mobile applications (apps) have become deeply personal, constantly demanding access to privacy-sensitive information in exchange for more personalized user experiences. Such privacy-invading practices have generated major multidimensional privacy concerns among app users. Objective: The research on mobile app privacy has experienced rapid growth over the past decade. This line of research is aimed at systematically exposing the privacy practices of apps and proposing solutions to protect the privacy of mobile app users. In this paper, we conduct a systematic mapping study of this body of research. Our objectives are to a) explore trends in SE app privacy research, b) …

Analysis, Modeling, And Simulation (Ams) Case Studies Of Connected And Automated Vehicle (Cav) Implementations Specific To The South Central Region, Christopher Melson, Jiaqi Ma

Publications

Connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) offer potentially transformative and far-reaching impacts to the transportation system. However, realized benefits will be directly tied to how well agencies prepare for these technologies. This report documents efforts that support CAV preparatory actions in Louisiana and includes: (1) conducting a stakeholder survey to inform engagement activities to develop strategic partnerships in CAV deployment and (2) conducting crash analyses for deployment scenarios of CAV-based queue warning systems (QWSs).

An electronic survey was developed and disseminated to 273 Louisiana organizations. The purpose of the survey was to engage these organizations under the context of CAV planning …

Representations Of Female Agency In Medieval French Literature, Mathilde Pointiere

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the different ways authors portray female agency in medieval French literature. In focusing on three medieval writers, Chrétien de Troyes, Heldris de Cornouailles and Christine de Pizan, I contend that female agency arises as a result of trauma or crisis. I define my terms as follows: agency is the capacity and intention of performing actions on one’s own behalf. For a fictional character to have agency, therefore, she must be portrayed as having a sense of control and of being the owner of the action she executes. Additionally, I argue that as women characters assume their agency, …

Empowering The Caregiver Network Of Farmers With A Disability: A Case Study Of The North Carolina Agrability Project, Kristoff Minus, Janine Woods, Richie Roberts, Chastity English, Beatriz Rodriguez

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Planning And Repeated Writing Interventions On Writing Fluency, Katherine Lea Moore

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Writing is an essential skill for academic success. Evidence shows students with writing difficulties experience lower overall academic performance (Graham & Perin, 2007). The development of fluent writing is particularly important, as it has been shown to be a strong predictor of global writing quality (Malecki & Jewell, 2003). Limited research exists on writing interventions specifically targeting writing fluency. While performance feedback procedures have been found effective for increasing writing fluency (Hier & Eckert, 2016), interventions such as story-mapping and self-regulation strategy development (SRSD), which target higher order writing skills, have also been shown to improve writing fluency abilities (Harris, …

The Martyrdom And Monster-Ization Of The Mujahideen In The American Christian Mind, Katelyn Prescott

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Green Alga Bicarbonate Transporter And Uses Thereof, James V. Moroney, Marylou C. Machingura, Joanna Bajsa-Hirschel

College of Science Patents

Provided herein are green alga Cia8 polypeptides and the polynucleotides that encode them. Also provided herein are transformed cells and transgenic plants that include one or more of the polynucleotides and/or polypeptides provided herein.

Controlling The Orientation Of Fluorescent Dyes Using External Electric Fields, Henry J. Kantrow

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Capture And Metabolomic Analysis Of The Human Endometrial Epithelial Organoid Secretome, Constantine A. Simintiras, Pramod Dhakal, Chaman Ranjit, Harriet C. Fitzgerald, Ahmed Z. Balboula, Thomas E. Spencer

Faculty Publications

Suboptimal uterine fluid (UF) composition can lead to pregnancy loss and likely contributes to offspring susceptibility to chronic adult-onset disorders. However, our understanding of the biochemical composition and mechanisms underpinning UF formation and regulation remain elusive, particularly in humans. To address this challenge, we developed a high-throughput method for intraorganoid fluid (IOF) isolation from human endometrial epithelial organoids. The IOF is biochemically distinct to the extraorganoid fluid (EOF) and cell culture medium as evidenced by the exclusive presence of 17 metabolites in IOF. Similarly, 69 metabolites were unique to EOF, showing asymmetrical apical and basolateral secretion by the in vitro …