Digital Commons Network^™

An Examination Of Frontline Employee–Customer Incidental Similarities In Service Failure And Recovery Contexts, Kristina K. Lindsey-Hall, Susana Jaramillo, Thomas L. Baker, Daniel G. Bachrach

Faculty Publications

Developing rapport during the “moment of truth” when frontline employees (FLEs) interact with customers has long been an important topic for researchers and managers. We suggest incidental similarities—seemingly trivial shared points of comparison between customers and FLEs—can play a vital role during this juncture in service failure and recovery contexts. Across two experimental studies, we investigate several relationships impacted by the presence or absence of an incidental similarity between FLEs and customers for their effect on satisfaction and repatronage intentions. Results suggest incidental similarities can reduce failure attributions toward service providers and improve these important customer-related outcomes (study 1). Results …

Profiling Consumers: Examination Of Chinese Gen Z Consumers’ Sustainable Fashion Consumption, Yanbo Zhang, Chuanlan Liu, Yanru Lyu

Faculty Publications

The textile and apparel industry is widely recognized for its negative impact on the environment and society, and China is one of the largest fashion-consumption markets worldwide. There has been a growing awareness and effort to address these concerns in China, and Chinese Gen-Z consumers are playing a crucial role in shaping sustainable practices. This study aimed to identify and profile Gen-Z consumers with substantial engagement in sustainable fashion consumption in China. Data were collected from 292 Chinese Gen-Z adults from three major cities, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, using a convenience sampling strategy and the snowball approach. Cluster analysis was …

Thermoset Polymer Composites With Gradient Natural And Synthetic Fiber Reinforcement: Self-Healing, Shape-Memory, And Fiber Recyclability, Sakil Mahmud, John Konlan, Jenny Deicaza, Rachel Anna Schmidt, Guoqiang Li

Faculty Publications

Natural fibers have high potential as renewable reinforcement for polymers; however, their lower load-carrying capacity compared to synthetic fibers significantly limits the wide application in fiber-reinforced polymer composites. In laminated composite beams under bending load, the normal stress is the highest on the top and bottom layers but is zero at the mid-plane, with almost a linear normal strain distribution. Although the shear stress is the highest at the mid-plane, it may not be a major concern as most polymers can survive the high shear stress. Using this concept, we have designed a hybrid fiber reinforcement in a gradient manner: …

Social Media And Volunteer Rescue Requests Prediction With Random Forest And Algorithm Bias Detection: A Case Of Hurricane Harvey, Volodymyr V. Mihunov, Kejin Wang, Zheye Wang, Nina S.N. Lam, Mingxuan Sun

Faculty Publications

AI fairness is tasked with evaluating and mitigating bias in algorithms that may discriminate towards protected groups. This paper examines if bias exists in AI algorithms used in disaster management and in what manner. We consider the 2017 Hurricane Harvey when flood victims in Houston resorted to social media to request for rescue. We evaluate a Random Forest regression model trained to predict Twitter rescue request rates from social-environmental data using three fairness criteria (independence, separation, and sufficiency). The Social Vulnerability Index (SVI), its four sub-indices, and four variables representing digital divide were considered sensitive attributes. The Random Forest regression …

Feature Extraction Techniques For Noisy Distributed Acoustic Sensor Data Acquired In A Wellbore, Jagadeeshwar Tabjula, Jyotsna Sharma

Faculty Publications

The distributed acoustic sensor (DAS) is a promising technology for real-time monitoring of wellbores and other infrastructures. However, the desired signals are often overwhelmed by background and environmental noise inherent in field applications. We present a suite of computationally inexpensive techniques for the real-time extraction of the gas signatures from noisy DAS data acquired in a 5163 ft. deep wellbore. The techniques are implemented on three well-scale DAS datasets, each representing multiphase flow conditions with different gas injection volumes, fluid circulation rates, and injection methods. The proposed denoising techniques not only helped in optimizing the gas slug signature despite the …

Voting In The Mall - Understanding Political Consumerism In The United States And Europe, Kwadwo Poku-Agyemang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the various traits that predispose individuals or groups to participate in political boycotts by refraining from purchasing goods and services from companies with the goal of promoting their political beliefs and goals. Specifically, this research considers the effects of political ideology, attitudes toward historically-marginalized groups, and identification with grievance groups shape self-reported participation in political consumerism in the United States and Europe. Using data from the 2016 and 2020 American National Election Survey and the eighth, nineth and tenth rounds of the European Social Survey, I find that although political consumerism has been seen as a liberal …

Silica Concentrations In Dominant Vegetation Species Of Wax Lake Delta, Louisiana, Danielle M. Soileau

LSU Master's Theses

Coastal deltaic wetlands colonize dynamic environments and experience fluctuations of salinity, river connectivity, sediment dredging or deposition, and periods of inundation resulting in unique vegetation and soils. Louisiana’s coastline is experiencing enhanced loss of coastal deltaic wetlands in coastal basins where the Mississippi River no longer is connected to waterways and channels that would normally provide freshwater and sediments representing the abandonment phase of the delta cycle. There is a coastal basin in the central regions of the state, the Atchafalaya Bay, that is still in the active phase of delta cycle resulting in the growth of the Wax Lake, …

Roleplaying Games And Performance, Benjamin Joseph Munise

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Roleplaying Games and Performance calls to mind popular appearances of roleplaying games on stage and screen, like Stranger Things or Qui Nguyen’s popular play, She Kills Monsters. However, inquiry into the way roleplaying games appear in these titles reveals the way they have been instrumentalized to serve the ends of their respective mediums. Scholars writing about roleplaying games also tend to leap straight to analyses of video games, with many words spilled over World of Warcraft while a live site of analog performance sits before them. In this work, I address the tabletop roleplaying game as a medium with …

Experiments And Data Analysis For Modulated Phase Gratings In X-Rays, Sydney B. Carr

LSU Master's Theses

Purpose: Modulated Phase Grating (MPG) interferometry has been shown in theory and simulations to produce observable fringes on a clinical detector without requiring fluence absorbing analyzer. In this work, we will experimentally show that the MPG X-ray system produces observable fringes and multi-modal X-ray images.

Motivation:Nearly 1 in 8 women in the US will develop invasive breast cancer in their lifetime, accounting for approximately 40,000 deaths each year [1-2]. In order to pursue the best treatment option available, cancer itself must be adequately imaged and staged, based on size and level of metastasis, on the order of Stage I-IV. …

Effects Of Research Dissemination Vehicle Use On Preservice Teacher Candidate Knowledge Acquisition, Allie Jenkins Boquet

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study provides information on how EBPs can be disseminated to education practitioners for the purpose of knowledge acquisition. With a well-established research-to-practice gap in the field of education, this study determined which research dissemination vehicle, practitioner journal article, informational video, or textbook chapter, allowed for the highest acquisition of knowledge for preservice teachers.

The purpose of this study was to determine how the use of three different research dissemination vehicles, 1) practitioner journal articles, 2) informational videos, and 3) textbook chapters, impacts acquisition of knowledge of the EBP, instructional feedback, when utilized by preservice teacher candidates as well as …

A History Of The Construction And Financing Of Division I Football Bowl Subdivision And Ivy League Stadia: An Ideal-Type On Financial Modernization, Tiffany E. Demiris

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation seeks to introduce financial modernization as a distinct subcategory of modernization and present practical applications for sport managers. Modernization literature has shown that, as society advances, levels of complexity increase. Modernization is generally concerned about the impact of technology, transportation, financial operations, and the reduction of risk in society (Seifried & Novicevic, 2017). These facets are not only important to established modernization subcategories, reflexive and ecological, but are also applicable to financial systems and demonstrate how financial modernization is both complementary and a distinct type of modernization. It is possible to take larger risks over time because so …

Reducing Recycling Contamination Using An Information Nudge, Mimi Rivette

LSU Master's Theses

Recycling contamination is a central challenge to recycling programs but is infrequently studied due to the difficulty of measuring contents and the inconvenience of sorting through recycling bags by hand. We conducted two simultaneous experiments to address both the issue of recycling contamination and the infrequency of its study at Louisiana State University in Fall 2021. We implemented two signage treatments, the first explicitly instructing passersby not to recycle a short list of common recycling contaminants, including Styrofoam, food wrappers, plastic bags, and face masks, and the second generally encouraging recycling but excluding specific instructions on what to recycle. To …

Reconstruction Of Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy-Computed Tomography, Chia-Lung Chien

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Purpose: Volumetric modulated arc therapy-computed tomography (VMAT-CT) was proposed in 2010 as the CBCT reconstruction technique using portal images collected during VMAT. Yet, its clinical applications were impeded by the poor image quality due to motion blurs from fast movements of multi-leaf collimator (MLC) and projection data deficiency due to truncations from MLC. The goal of this study is to develop systematic preprocessing methods, and a novel iterative reconstruction algorithm to generate quality VMAT-CT and lower the number of failure cases of VMAT-CT reconstruction.

Methods: Systematic image preprocessing methods, including Online region-based active contouring (ORACM), MLC motion modeling and outlier …

Ross Sea Ocean-Temperature Reconstruction And Marine Radiocarbon Reservoir Effect Calibration From Modern And Pre-Modern Scleractinia, Colby Knight

LSU Master's Theses

Warm Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) upwelling in the Southern Ocean currently circulates underneath Antarctic ice shelves in many areas. The associated melting reduces the ice-shelf buttressing effect, which can subsequently accelerate flow and cause retreat of grounded and floating ice. Upwelled CDW may have also been a primary driver of post-Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) deglaciation, but there are few proxy data from which upwelling history and paleo-ocean temperatures can be reconstructed. Here we build on previous deep, cold-water coral studies (e.g., Stewart et al., 2020) to detect CDW intrusion on the western Ross Sea continental shelf using lithium-to-magnesium ratios (Li/Mg) …

Maximum Likelihood Estimation Of Glandular Fraction For Mammography, Bryce Smith

LSU Master's Theses

Breast tissue is a mixture of adipose and fibro glandular tissue with a glandular fraction on average of 20%-30%. Previous studies have confirmed that there is a risk of undetected breast cancer related to the amount of glandular tissue present in the breast. Since a higher glandular fraction can lead to an increased cancer risk, it is important for radiologists to know quantitative glandular fraction when diagnosing a patient. Another increasingly popular protocol for mammography is to eliminate the anti-scatter grid and use software algorithms to reduce scatter. This work focuses on using a maximum likelihood algorithm to estimate the …

Plato's Republics: A Dramatic Interpretation Of The Early Cities In Plato's "Republic", Simeon Burns

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation will demonstrate a new methodological approach to reading Plato’s Republic. I develop and apply a dramatic, dynamic hermeneutic to Book II and part of Book III in the text. This method holds that each speech is the product of a preceding agreement or disagreement between two speakers. Agreements lead to the argument’s advancement and disagreements result in a regression to a previous agreement from which to restart the exchange. The focus section is largely on the early exchange Socrates has with Adeimantus. I argue that Socrates is an unwilling participant in the famous discussion on the meaning …

The Influence Of Selected Personal And Academic Demographic Characteristics On Retention From Fourth To Fifth Semester Of Enrollment Among Traditional-Age Undergraduate Students At A Research Extensive University In The Southern Portion Of The United States, Tammy R. Millican

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

While many Americans may be questioning the value of a college degree due to rising costs, on virtually every measure of economic well-being and career attainment—from personal earnings to job satisfaction to the share employed full time—young college graduates are outperforming their peers with less education. Yet college dropout rates indicate that up to 32.9% of undergraduates do not complete their degree program, which has a financial impact on both students and the universities and colleges where they enroll (Hanson, 2022).

Historically, students who leave college before completing a baccalaureate degree are no better qualified than those with a high …

Behavior Of Gas Influx In Riser And Considerations For Riser Gas Handling, Mahendra Kumar Kunju

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Conventional methods of managing Gas-in-Riser events are not optimal when the riser is isolated from the formation by a closed subsea blowout preventer (BOP) on rigs equipped with Mud-GasSeparator (MGS), Managed Pressure Drilling (MPD), or Riser Gas Handling (RGH) equipment. As the use of adaptive drilling processes like MPD facilitates drilling of otherwise non-drillable wells with faster corrective action, the drilling industry should include the effect of gas solubility, dispersion, bubble suspension, fluid compressibility as well as riser ballooning to avoid overestimation of riser pressure and produce more efficient well control methods. The IADC Deepwater Well Control Guideline recommends always …

Foreign State Images And Popular Foreign Policy Constraints, Cana Kim

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

When making equivalent foreign policy decisions, why do national leaders sometimes face stronger constraints from the mass public? A growing number of studies recognize the effect of public opinion on foreign policy decision-making. While not having the authority to formulate foreign policy, the mass public can hold national leaders accountable in formal and informal ways. However, public opinion does not function as an automatic constraint on national leaders. Instead, public opinion provides more powerful constraints on foreign policy decision-making conditional on the context shaping popular beliefs and social behavior.

In this dissertation, I delve into the public perceptions of domestic …

An Evaluation Of Procedures To Increase Medical Device Compliance, Sarah Christian Holmes

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Behavioral interventions have been implemented to increase compliance with medical devices across patient populations and target devices. Intervention to increase medical device compliance (MDC) can involve a variety of components, including different reinforcement, graduated exposure, extinction, and punishment with varying degrees of acceptability and feasibility. In the current study, we compared the effects of noncontingent (NCR) versus synchronous reinforcement schedules on the duration of MDC and latency to device removal with KN95 face masks with 2 patients with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Following an initial baseline phase demonstrating that both participants engaged in compliance for less than 5 min, we used …

Measuring Food Literacy Among Limited-Resourced Adults, Emelia Clement

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Food literacy is the interrelated knowledge, skills and behaviors needed to plan and manage, select, prepare, and eat healthy food. It is positively associated with improved consumption of nutritious diets, and can be beneficial to limited-resource adults, who are often at risk for chronic diet-related diseases. Valid instruments for measuring food literacy in this population are scarce but urgently needed. The Eating and Food Literacy Behavior Questionnaire (EFLBQ) can be used to measure food literacy among limited-resource audiences.

Part one of this study aimed to determine the fitness of the EFLBQ to measure food literacy in limited-resource adults. A convenience …

Evaluating Abiotic And Biotic Factors Affecting Plant Succession Processes At Malheur Lake, Beth Boos, Sammy L. King

LSU Master's Theses

Arid wetlands are diverse systems that provide habitat for a variety of flora and fauna, including stopover and breeding habitat for migratory birds. In the western United States, these wetlands support a network of stopover sites on the Pacific Flyway, and due primarily to wetland loss and alterations, these areas are becoming more isolated. Malheur Lake is a shallow endorheic lake in eastern Oregon that supported a robust emergent marsh throughout most of the 20^th century. However, following large scale flooding in the 1980s, emergent vegetation was extirpated and has only reestablished in small patches. Our objective was to …

Software-Defined Networking Security Techniques And The Digital Forensics Of The Sdn Control Plane, Abdullah Alshaya

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is an efficient networking design that decouples the network's control plane from the data plane. When compared to the traditional network architecture, the SDN architecture shares many of the same security issues. The centralized SDN controller makes it easier to control, easier to program in real-time, and more flexible, but this comes at the cost of more security risks. An attack on the control plane layer of the SDN controller is a major security concern.

First, centralized design and the existence of a single point of failure in the control plane compromise the accessibility and availability of …

Angular Correlations In The Β Decay Of B 8: First Tensor-Current Limits From A Mirror-Nucleus Pair, A. T. Gallant, N. D. Scielzo, G. Savard, J. A. Clark, M. Brodeur, F. Buchinger, D. P. Burdette, M. T. Burkey, S. Caldwell, J. E. Crawford, A. Czeszumska, C. M. Deibel, J. Greene, D. Heslop, T. Y. Hirsh, A. F. Levand, B. Longfellow, G. E. Morgan, P. Mueller, R. Orford, S. Padgett, N. Paul, A. Pérez Galván, A. Reimer, R. Segel, K. S. Sharma, K. Siegl, L. Varriano, B. J. Zabransky

Faculty Publications

We present the first measurement of the α-β-ν angular correlation in the Gamow-Teller β+ decay of B8. This was accomplished using the Beta-decay Paul Trap, expanding on our previous work on the β- decay of Li8. The B8 result is consistent with the V-A electroweak interaction of the standard model and, on its own, provides a limit on the exotic right-handed tensor current relative to the axial-vector current of |CT/CA|2< 0.013 at the 95.5% confidence level. This represents the first high-precision angular correlation measurements in mirror decays and was made possible through the use of an ion trap. By combining this B8 result with our previous Li8 results, we demonstrate a new pathway for increased precision in searches for exotic currents.

A Descriptive Study Of Screening Practices And Outcomes Of Bilingual Spanish/English Children, Mariajose Bosanko

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to: 1) examine the screening practices and outcomes of Latinx bilingual Spanish/English-speaking children, 2) compare screening practices and outcomes to those of sex and age matched Black and white monolingual peers, and 3) extend and reflect on professional practices. I also explored variables that may affect screening outcomes, including the children’s race/ethnicity, sex, and socioeconomic status (SES).

The participants were 41 Spanish/English bilingual Latinx children aged two- to four-years-old (Latinx), 41 same sex and age monolingual Black children (Black), and 41 same sex and age monolingual white children (white) receiving speech/language screenings during a …

Don't Forget Me: A Discussion On Social Memory And Commemoration, Anfernee Murray

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis examines the relationship between social memory and social identity development among groups who share contested interpretations of their shared social memory. With social memories being a collaborative process that requires consensus and compromise, there arises conflict when groups are divided in deciding on what event of their shared history is relevant to remember - for it is these memories that influence and shape how a group identifies itself.

For Black Americans, this contention arises in the conversations surrounding the difficult and traumatic histories of their enslaved ancestors by the ancestors of their white counterparts. This is further complicated …

Modelling Illiquid Stocks Using Quantum Stochastic Calculus: Asymptotic Methods, Will Hicks

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Assessing The Preservation Of Black Cultural Heritage In Baton Rouge, Kirsten Lashay Campbell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This project is an exploratory investigation into the current state of preservation of Black Cultural Heritage in Baton Rouge. Through interviews with stakeholders at local archives, institutions, and repositories about their collections, programs, and other initiatives, it aims to assess what resources and services are and are not currently available to the Black Community in Baton Rouge. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of community archiving, specifically how community archives can be used to fill the gaps missing as is the case in Baton Rouge. Additionally, this study provides the foundation for building a community archive dedicated to Black Cultural Heritage …

Alcea, Autumn Johnson

LSU Master's Theses

This exhibition was created with the intent to investigate and celebrate gender fluidity in both nature and humanity by depicting one plant, the hollyhock, whose reproductive parts share a structure that changes from male to female as the plant matures. Alcea consists of prints, drawings, and installations that showcase the hollyhock in each stage of its transition.

The Psychological Impact Of Adolescent Violence Exposure: The Roles Of Coping And Social Support, Kelsey Gnade Coulthard

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Research demonstrates that children and adolescents experience a wide range of exposure to violence with rates ranging from 20% and 50% (Finkelhor & Dziuba-Leatherman, 1994; Finkelhor et al., 2005; Zimmerman & Posick, 2016). Violence exposure has been associated with several negative outcomes including biological, psychological, family-based, and academic problems. Further, studies have examined potential protective factors that may buffer against these consequences, with inconsistent results surrounding the roles of coping and social support. However, many of these studies use either an overly generalized definition of both violence exposure and/or social support or use very specific type of violence within a …