Digital Commons Network^™

Health In Preconception, Pregnancy And Postpartum Global Alliance: International Network Pregnancy Priorities For The Prevention Of Maternal Obesity And Related Pregnancy And Long-Term Complications, Briony Hill, Helen Skouteris, Jacqueline A. Boyle, Cate Bailey, Ruth Walker, Shakila Thangaratinam, Hildrun Sundseth, Judith Stephenson, Eric Steegers, Leanne M. Redman, Cynthia Montanaro, Siew Lim, Laura Jorgensen, Brian Jack, Ana Luiza Vilela Borges, Heidi J. Bergmeier, Jo Anna B. Baxter, Cheryce L. Harrison, Helena J. Teede

Clinical Research Faculty Publications

In this article, we describe the process of establishing agreed international pregnancy research priorities to address the global issues of unhealthy lifestyles and rising maternal obesity. We focus specifically on the prevention of maternal obesity to improve related clinical pregnancy and long-term complications. A team of multidisciplinary, international experts in preconception and pregnancy health, including consumers, were invited to form the Health in Preconception, Pregnancy and Postpartum (HiPPP) Global Alliance. As an initial activity, a priority setting process was completed to generate pregnancy research priorities in this field. Research, practice and policy gaps were identified and enhanced through expert and …

Video Games, Obesity, And Children, Chelsea L. Kracht, Elizabeth D. Joseph, Amanda E. Staiano

Population and Public Health Science Faculty Publications

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To examine associations between video game play and obesity in children. RECENT FINDINGS: Based on a scoping review of 26 studies (25 cross-sectional; 1 longitudinal) published in 2013-2018, 14 studies (53%) reported no association between video game play and obesity, and 12 studies reported positive associations. In a review of 8 systematic reviews, there was preliminary evidence on the effectiveness of exergame (physically active) play for weight reduction and to attenuate weight gain but little indication that interventions effectively reduced video game play or general screen time. This review found ambiguous evidence on the extent to which …

The White-Black Disparity In Maternal Mortality And Morbidity: An Evaluation Of Risk Factors, Ann Gilbert

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Testing The Interaction Between The Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Regulator And Anoctamin 1 In Amacrine Cells Of Gallus Gallus Retinas, Hailey Danielle Simpson

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

The Relative Importance Of Local And Regional Processes To Metapopulation Dynamics, Tad A. Dallas, Marjo Saastamoinen, Torsti Schulz, Otso Ovaskainen

Faculty Publications

© 2019 The Authors. Journal of Animal Ecology © 2019 British Ecological Society Metapopulation dynamics – patch occupancy, colonization and extinction – are the result of complex processes at both local (e.g. environmental conditions) and regional (e.g. spatial arrangement of habitat patches) scales. A large body of work has focused on habitat patch area and connectivity (area-isolation paradigm). However, these approaches often do not incorporate local environmental conditions or fully address how the spatial arrangement of habitat patches (and resulting connectivity) can influence metapopulation dynamics. Here, we utilize long-term data on a classic metapopulation system – the Glanville fritillary butterfly …

Insect Herbivores Associated With Nymphaea Mexicana (Nymphaeaceae) In Southern United States: Potential Biological Control Agents For South Africa, Megan K. Reid, Julie A. Coetzee, Martin P. Hill, Rodrigo Diaz, Lyn A. Gettys, James P. Cuda, Christopher S. Reid

Faculty Publications

Nymphaea mexicana Zuccarini (Nymphaeaceae) (Mexican waterlily) is an emergent floating-leaved aquatic plant from the southeastern USA that is invasive in South Africa. In invaded waterbodies this plant restricts water movement, increases siltation, decreases recreational activities, and can deplete water oxygen levels, which in turn negatively impacts aquatic fauna. Currently there are no chemical, mechanical, or biological control programs in place for N. mexicana in South Africa, but the sustainability of biological control makes this the most desirable option. Field surveys for potential biological control agents were conducted in the native range of N. mexicana in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas from …

An Economic And Ecological Analysis Of Three Land Building Approaches Using Mississippi River Sediment, Madison Hasenkampf

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Gnrh As A Neuromodulator In Midbrain Sensory Regions During The Female Cichlid Reproductive Cycle, Mark Anthony Maier Ii

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Highly Efficient Composite Flame Retardants For Improving The Flame Retardancy, Thermal Stability, Smoke Suppression, And Mechanical Properties Of Eva, Yilin Liu, Bin Li, Miaojun Xu, Lili Wang

Faculty Publications

Ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) copolymer has been used extensively in many fields. However, EVA is flammable and releases CO gas during burning. In this work, a composite flame retardant with ammonium polyphosphate (APP), a charring-foaming agent (CFA), and a layered double hydroxide (LDH) containing rare-earth elements (REEs) was obtained and used to improve the flame retardancy, thermal stability, and smoke suppression for an EVA matrix. The thermal analysis showed that the maximum thermal degradation temperature of all composites increased by more than 37 °C compared with that of pure EVA. S-LaMgAl/APP/CFA/EVA, S-CeMgAl/APP/CFA/EVA, and S-NdMgAl/APP/CFA/EVA could achieve self-extinguishing behavior according to …

X-Ray Interferometry Without Analyzer For Breast Ct Application: A Simulation Study, Jingzhu Xu, Kyungmin Ham, Joyoni Dey

Faculty Publications

Purpose: We investigate an analyzer-less x-ray interferometer with a spatially modulated phase grating (MPG) that can deliver three modalities (attenuation image, phase image, and scatter images) in breast computed tomography (BCT). The system can provide three x-ray modalities while preserving the dose to the object and can achieve attenuation image sensitivity similar to that of a standard absorption-only BCT. The MPG system works with a source, a source-grating, a single phase grating, and a detector. No analyzer is necessary. Thus, there is an approximately 2x improvement in fluence at the detector for our system compared with the same source-detector distance …

Body Mass Index And Movement Behaviors Among Schoolchildren From 13 Countries Across A Continuum Of Human Development Indices: A Multinational Cross-Sectional Study, Taru Manyanga, Joel D. Barnes, Jean Philippe Chaput, Michelle Guerrero, Peter T. Katzmarzyk, Emily F. Mire, Antonio Prista, Mark S. Tremblay

Population and Public Health Science Faculty Publications

Objective: This study describes the distributions of body mass index (BMI) and movement behaviors among schoolchildren from 13 countries across a continuum of human development. Methods: Data were from a cross-sectional study of 9-11-year-old children (n = 8055) recruited from 269 urban schools in 13 countries, and an additional 7 rural schools in one of these countries (Mozambique). BMI was derived from objectively measured heights and weights. Moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA), sedentary time (SED), and sleep duration were assessed by waist-worn Actigraph GT3X+ accelerometers. Linear models were used to describe the distributions of BMI z-scores, MVPA, SED, and …

Spatial And Pregnancy-Related Changes In The Protein, Amino Acid, And Carbohydrate Composition Of Bovine Oviduct Fluid, Beatriz Rodríguez-Alonso, Veronica Maillo, Omar Salvador Acuña, Rebeca López-Úbeda, Alejandro Torrecillas, Constantine A. Simintiras, Roger Sturmey, Manuel Avilés, Patrick Lonergan, Dimitrios Rizos

Faculty Publications

Knowledge of how the biochemical composition of the bovine oviduct is altered due to the oviduct anatomy or the presence of an embryo is lacking. Thus, the aim of this study was to assess the effect of (І) oviduct anatomy and (ІІ) embryo presence on oviductal fluid (OF) protein, amino acid, and carbohydrate composition. Cross-bred beef heifers (n = 19) were synchronized and those in standing estrus were randomly allocated to a cyclic (non-bred) or pregnant (artificially inseminated) group. All heifers were slaughtered on Day 3 after estrus. The oviducts ipsilateral to the corpus luteum from each animal were isolated, …

20 Years Of Evolution From Cognitive To Intelligent Communications, Zhijin Qin, Xiangwei Zhou, Lin Zhang, Yue Gao, Ying Chang Liang, Geoffrey Ye Li

Faculty Publications

It has been 20 years since the concept of cognitive radio (CR) was proposed, which is an efficient approach to provide more access opportunities to connect massive wireless devices. To improve the spectrum efficiency, CR enables unlicensed usage of licensed spectrum resources. It has been regarded as the key enabler for intelligent communications. In this article, we will provide an overview on the intelligent communication in the past two decades to illustrate the revolution of its capability from cognition to artificial intelligence (AI). Particularly, this article starts from a comprehensive review of typical spectrum sensing and sharing, followed by the …

Large And Moderate Deviation Principles For Recursive Kernel Estimators For Spatial Data, Salim Bouzebda, Yousri Slaoui

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Motivation, Higher Education, Belonging, And Development: Integration Of Highly Educated Immigrants Into The Western Labor Market, Cihan Aydiner

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The research investigates the interdependencies among higher education, motivation, belonging, and development. Also, the study covers the literature on integration and gender of international migrants.

The first study examines the motivation to serve and its predictors among Turkish military officers and Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) prior to July 15^th, 2016 Coup attempt in Turkey. Based on survey data, the findings revealed that institutional and moral commitments, organizational responsiveness, perceived fairness, and satisfaction with social benefits were positive significant determinants of motivation to serve, while occupational commitment had a negative relationship with it.

The second study examines the labor market …

Closed Quantum Black-Scholes: Quantum Drift And The Heisenberg Equation Of Motion, Will Hicks

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Improving Ocr Accuracy Of Damaged Pictures With Generative Adversarial Networks, Pu Du

LSU Master's Theses

In this thesis, we focus on resolving the inpainting problem and improving Optical Character Recognition (OCR) accuracy of damaged text images at character level. We present a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN)-based model conditioned on class labels for image inpainting. This model is a deep convolutional neural network with encoder-decoder style architecture which can process images with holes at random locations. Experiments on the character images dataset demonstrate that our proposed model generates promising inpainting results and significantly improve OCR accuracy by reconstructing missing parts of damaged character images.

Role Of Coastal Environmental Conditions During Austral Winter On Plankton Community Dynamics And The Occurrence Of Pseudo-Nitzschia Spp. And Domoic Acid In Inhambane Province, Mozambique, Holly Kelchner

LSU Master's Theses

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are increasing globally in frequency, persistence, and geographic extent. HABs pose a threat to economic stability, and ecosystem and human health. To date no incidences of marine toxins produced by phytoplankton have been recorded in Mozambique, which may be due to the absence of a monitoring program and general awareness of the potential threat. This study is the first documentation of the occurrence of a neurotoxin, domoic acid (DA), produced by the diatom genus Pseudo-nitzschia spp. along the east coast of Africa. The coast of Inhambane Province is a biodiversity hotspot where year-round Rhincodon typus (whale …

Exit Problems For Jump-Diffusion Processes With Uniform Jumps, Mario Lefebvre

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Examining Nursing Student Dropout Behavior: An Event History Analysis, Michele Lee Blackwell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study examined student-level data to identify factors that predict student departure from an undergraduate nursing program. National nursing shortages, declining enrollment, and high rates of attrition pose significant concerns for undergraduate nursing programs. The following research questions guided this study: 1) Which student-level variables predict nursing student dropout risks over time? 2) Which student-level variables predict nursing student retention over time? and 3) When are nursing students most likely to drop out?

The methodological approach was event history analysis, a form of linear regression that measures the likelihood of an event (nursing student dropout) at a particular time (semesters …

Phenotypic And Genotypic Characterization Of Aroma And Cercospora Janseana Resistance In U.S. Rice, Christopher Keith Addison

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Rice is a staple food for over one-third of the world’s population. With the increasing population, plant breeders must continue to breed for improved varieties. The utilization of markers to applied breeding program can increase the efficiency of selection for key traits. The targeted traits for this research include grain aroma and resistance to the fungal disease narrow brown leaf spot (Cercospora janseana). Our objective was to characterize SNP diversity across the BADH2 gene in publicly available sequence data of a collection of 2,932 rice varieties was characterized to determine the number of gene haplotypes in O. sativa. …

Ogawa Integrability And A Condition For Convergence In The Multidimensional Case, Nicolò Cangiotti, Sonia Mazzucchi

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Mixing Coefficient For Discrete-Time Stochastic Flow, E.V. Glinyanaya

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

On A Class Of Average Preserving Semi-Martingale Laws Optimization Problems, Rémi Lassalle

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Conditional Quantum One-Time Pad, Kunal Sharma, Eyuri Wakakuwa, Mark M. Wilde

Faculty Publications

Suppose that Alice and Bob are located in distant laboratories, which are connected by an ideal quantum channel. Suppose further that they share many copies of a quantum state ρABE, such that Alice possesses the A systems and Bob the BE systems. In our model, there is an identifiable part of Bob's laboratory that is insecure: a third party named Eve has infiltrated Bob's laboratory and gained control of the E systems. Alice, knowing this, would like use their shared state and the ideal quantum channel to communicate a message in such a way that Bob, who has access to …

The Semimartingale Dynamics And Generator Of A Continuous Time Semi-Markov Chain, Robert J. Elliott

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Developing A Fanbase In Niche Sport Markets: An Examination Of Nhl Fandom And Social Sustainability In The Sunbelt, Brandon Mastromartino, Tyreal Y. Qian, Jerred J. Wang, James J. Zhang

Faculty Publications

In the modern day sport marketplace, professional sport teams face tough competition to build and sustain a viable fan base. This study sought to address three research questions: (a) what are the factors that contribute to the socialization of sports fans in niche sport markets? (b) How do team-led and fan-led initiatives work to socialize fans? Finally, (c) to what extent do the socialization factors affect identify as a sports fan for a niche sport and overall fan consumption behavior? A questionnaire was administered to 535 NHL fans and data were analyzed through conducting an Exploratory Factor Analysis, Exploratory Factor …

Severe Weather-Induced Exchange Flows Through A Narrow Tidal Channel Of Calcasieu Lake Estuary, Jie Wang, Chunyan Li, Fumin Xu, Wei Huang

Faculty Publications

Exchange flows between estuaries and the coastal ocean are important for land-ocean interactions and ecosystem health. This study is aimed at resolving severe weather-induced exchange flows between the Calcasieu Lake Estuary and Gulf of Mexico. For that purpose, we use data from a long-term deployment of side-looking acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs) and conductivity-temperature-depth sensors (CTDs) as well as flow velocity data from a boat operated survey. Regression between the transport measured from a boat mounted ADCP and the velocity data from a fixed side-looking ADCP is done to calculate a long-term transport along the Calcasieu Pass. Analyses have been …

De Novo Assembly Of A High-Quality Reference Genome For The Horned Lark (Eremophila Alpestris), Nicholas A. Mason, Paulo Pulgarin, Carlos Daniel Cadena, Irby J. Lovette

Faculty Publications

Copyright © 2020 Mason et al. The Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris) is a small songbird that exhibits remarkable geographic variation in appearance and habitat across an expansive distribution. While E. alpestris has been the focus of many ecological and evolutionary studies, we still lack a highly contiguous genome assembly for the Horned Lark and related taxa (Alaudidae). Here, we present CLO_EAlp_1.0, a highly contiguous assembly for E. alpestris generated from a blood sample of a wild, male bird captured in the Altiplano Cundiboyacense of Colombia. By combining short-insert and mate-pair libraries with the ALLPATHS-LG genome assembly pipeline, we generated a …

Optimal Uniform Continuity Bound For Conditional Entropy Of Classical–Quantum States, Mark M. Wilde

Faculty Publications

In this short note, I show how a recent result of Alhejji and Smith (A tight uniform continuity bound for equivocation, 2019. arXiv:1909.00787v1) regarding an optimal uniform continuity bound for classical conditional entropy leads to an optimal uniform continuity bound for quantum conditional entropy of classical–quantum states. The bound is optimal in the sense that there always exists a pair of classical–quantum states saturating the bound, and so, no further improvements are possible. An immediate application is a uniform continuity bound for the entanglement of formation that improves upon the one previously given by Winter (Commun Math Phys 347(1):291–313, 2016. …