Digital Commons Network^™

Design And Performance Of A 35-Ton Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber As A Prototype For Future Very Large Detectors, D. L. Adams, M. Baird, G. Barr, N. Barros, A. Blake, E. Blaufuss, A. Booth, D. Brailsford, N. Buchanan, B. Carls, H. Chen, M. Convery, G. De Geronimo, T. Dealtry, R. Dharmapalan, Z. Djurcic, J. Fowler, S. Glavin, R. A. Gomes, M. C. Goodman, M. Graham, L. Greenler, A. Hahn, J. Hartnell, R. Herbst, A. Higuera, A. Himmel, J. Insler

Faculty Publications

Liquid argon time projection chamber technology is an attractive choice for large neutrino detectors, as it provides a high-resolution active target and it is expected to be scalable to very large masses. Consequently, it has been chosen as the technology for the first module of the DUNE far detector. However, the fiducial mass required for "far detectors" of the next generation of neutrino oscillation experiments far exceeds what has been demonstrated so far. Scaling to this larger mass, as well as the requirement for underground construction places a number of additional constraints on the design. A prototype 35-ton cryostat was …

Black And White: Derailment Of Desegregation In East Baton Rouge Parish Schools, Leonard Ray

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

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 …

Sudden And Steady Orbital Period Changes Across Six Classical Nova Eruptions: The End Of Hibernation And Two Serious Challenges For The Magnetic Braking Model Of Cataclysmic Variable Evolution, Bradley E. Schaefer

Faculty Publications

I report on two new measures of the sudden change in the orbital period (P) across the nova eruption (ΔP) and the steady period change in quiescence (P ) for classical novae (CNe) RR Pic and HR Del, bringing a total of six such measures for CNe, all in a final report of my large and long observing program. The fractional changes (ΔP/P) in parts-per-million (ppm) are -290.71 ± 0.28 (QZ Aur), -472.1 ± 4.8 (HR Del), -4.46 ± 0.03 (DQ Her), +39.6 ± 0.5 (BT Mon), -2003.7 ± 0.9 (RR Pic), and -273 ± 61 (V1017 Sgr). These results …

Sudden And Steady Orbital Period Changes Across The Classical Nova Eruptions Of Dq Her And Bt Mon, Bradley E. Schaefer

Faculty Publications

I report two new measures of the sudden change in the orbital period (P) across the nova eruption (ΔP) and the steady period change in quiescence (P- ) for classical novae (CNe) DQ Her and BT Mon. The fractional changes (ΔP/P) in parts per million (ppm) are -4.46 ± 0.03 for DQ Her and +39.6 ± 0.5 for BT Mon. For BT Mon, the ΔP/P value is not large enough (i.e. >1580 ppm) to allow for hibernation in this system. The negative ΔP/P for DQ Her is a confident counterexample of the hibernation model for the evolution of cataclysmic variables. …

Neutron-Hole Strength In N=81 Nuclei, A. M. Howard, S. J. Freeman, D. K. Sharp, T. Bloxham, J. A. Clark, C. M. Deibel, B. P. Kay, P. D. Parker, J. P. Schiffer, J. S. Thomas

Faculty Publications

A systematic study of neutron-hole strength in the N=81 nuclei Ba137, Ce139, Nd141, and Sm143 is reported. The single-neutron removal reactions (p,d) and (He3,α) were measured at energies of 23 and 34 MeV, respectively. Spectroscopic factors were extracted from measured cross sections through a distorted-wave Born approximation analysis and centroids of single-particle strength have been established. The change in these centroid energies as a function of proton number have been compared to calculations of the monopole shift for the s1/2 and h11/2 orbitals, where the majority of the strength has been observed. Significant fragmentation of strength was observed for the …

Fgf21 And The Physiological Regulation Of Macronutrient Preference, Cristal M. Hill, Emily Qualls-Creekmore, Hans Rudolf Berthoud, Paul Soto, Sangho Yu, David H. Mcdougal, Heike Münzberg, Christopher D. Morrison

Division of Basic Science Faculty Publications

The ability to respond to variations in nutritional status depends on regulatory systems that monitor nutrient intake and adaptively alter metabolism and feeding behavior during nutrient restriction. There is ample evidence that the restriction of water, sodium, or energy intake triggers adaptive responses that conserve existing nutrient stores and promote the ingestion of the missing nutrient, and that these homeostatic responses are mediated, at least in part, by nutritionally regulated hormones acting within the brain. This review highlights recent research that suggests that the metabolic hormone fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) acts on the brain to homeostatically alter macronutrient preference. …

Scaling Anomaly In The Mechanical Response In Microscale Reverse Extrusion Of Copper, Bin Zhang, W. J. Meng

Faculty Publications

The continuing trend of device miniaturization brings increasing demand for small metal parts and, consequently, significant interest in microscale metal forming technologies. In this work, the influence of grain size on mechanical response in microscale axisymmetric reverse extrusion of Cu 110 alloy was investigated in detail. A characteristic plastic strain associated with material deformation in the extrusion process was, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, defined, measured, and used to evaluate the material's bulk flow stress at this corresponding strain. This flow stress was then used to scale measured mechanical response in reverse extrusion and help …

Correction: Cultivation And Genomics Of The First Freshwater Sar11 (Ld12) Isolate (The Isme Journal, (2018), 12, 7, (1846-1860), 10.1038/S41396-018-0092-2), Michael W. Henson, V. Celeste Lanclos, Brant C. Faircloth, J. Cameron Thrash

Faculty Publications

Since publication of the original article the authors noticed, regrettably, that the production of the article introduced errors into the nomenclature format for the organism, which were identified by the authors during proofing, but nevertheless remained uncorrected prior to publication of the article. In the Abstract section “For strain LSUCC0530, we propose the provisional nomenclature Candidatus fonsibacter ubiquis” should read “For strain LSUCC0530, we propose the provisional nomenclature Candidatus Fonsibacter ubiquis”. In the Discussion section For the first cultured representative of the LD12 clade, we propose the provisional taxonomic assignment for strain LSUCC0530 as “Candidatus fonsibacter ubiquis” should read For …

Erratum: Detection Of Antibiotic Resistance Toxigenic Clostridium Difficile In Processed Retail Lettuce (Food Quality And Safety Doi: 10.1093/Fqsafe/Fyx032), Yi Han, Joan King, Marlene E. Janes

Faculty Publications

In the originally published version of this article the term 'Anonymous' was used incorrectly in a citation and in the associated reference. This has now been corrected to 'The Swedish CDAD Study Group' in the second paragraph and in the following reference: Anonymous.(1994). Treatment of Clostridium difficile associated diarrhea and colitis with an oral preparation of teicoplanin; a dose finding study. The Swedish CDAD Study Group. Scandinavian Journal of Infectious Diseases, 26: 309-316. has been changed to The Swedish CDAD Study Group.(1994). Treatment of Clostridium difficile associated diarrhea and colitis with an oral preparation of teicoplanin; a dose finding study. …

Trend Analysis Of Multiple Extreme Hourly Precipitation Time Series In The Southeastern United States, Vincent M. Brown, Barry D. Keim, Alan W. Black

Faculty Publications

Annual trends in extreme hourly precipitation time series were examined at 50 first-order weather stations across the southeastern United States from 1960 to 2017. Results indicated that the magnitude of annual maximum 1-, 3-, 6-, 12-, and 18-h periods did not broadly change at the sites analyzed; however, the numerical value that defines a (station specific) 90th-percentile hourly accumulation significantly (p ≤ 0.05) increased at 36% (18/50) of the stations. No station had a significant decreasing trend in annual 90th-percentile hourly event magnitude. Stations in Texas observed the largest increase in annual 90th-percentile hourly event magnitude, where parameter estimates showed …

Ecogeomorphic Evolution Of Muddy Coastlines: How Biota On A Range Of Scales, From Microscopic Biofilms To Landscape-Scale Vegetation Zonation Patterns, Interact With Physical Processes, Kendall Cole

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Coastal wetland ecosystems are inherently interdisciplinary; in these spaces, the physical forces of wind and water meet to interact with stabilizing and fortifying vegetation and biota, as well as mud. The combination of these factors build and sustain wetland ecosystems and without the complex feedbacks, they would cease to exist. In this dissertation, I present three studies that focus on ecogeomorphic interactions within coastal wetlands on a range of scales, from microscopic to the entire landscape and highlight the importance of these interactions when predicting future coastal change. The first study examined how biofilms, matrixes of photosynthetic diatoms and their …

Simulating Wave Dynamics In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico And Barataria Pass, Azadeh Razavi Arab

LSU Master's Theses

The coastal wetlands of Louisiana constitute ~40% of the wetlands in the United States. However, it suffers from 80% of the wetland losses in the whole country. In shallow coastal and estuarine environments, bed shear stresses related to wind waves contributes substantially to the edge erosion in the northern Gulf of Mexico (NGoM). Therefore, wave simulations in shallow estuarine areas are of great importance.

There are several challenges in simulating waves nearshore, especially over the shallow and nearly horizontal sea beds typical of the NGoM continental shelf and adjacent complex geometry estuaries: determination of the appropriate wind forcing dataset to …

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.

Mass Spectrometric Calibration For Real -Time Hydrocarbon Detection, Makuachukwu Mbaegbu

LSU Master's Theses

Determining gas compositions from live well fluids on a drilling rig is critical for real time formation evaluation. However, development and utilization of a reliable mass spectrometric method to accurately characterize these live well fluids is always a challenging issue because of lack of a robust, quick and effectively selective instrument and method. The primary goal of this research is to understand reasons of such discrepancies in results between “good” spectra, and “poor” ones. The objectives are thus to identify the detection issues, calibrate and QA/QC the instruments, and analyze the results in lab settings. In this study, we used …

Introduction To Computational Thinking: A New High School Curriculum Using Codeworld, Fernando Alegre, John Underwoood, Juana Moreno

Faculty Publications

The Louisiana Department of Education partnered with the Gordon A. Cain Center at LSU to pilot a Computing High School Graduation Pathway. The first course in the pathway, Introduction to Computational Thinking (ICT), is designed to teach programming and reinforce mathematical practice skills of nine-grade students, with an emphasis on promoting higher order thinking. In 2017- 18, about 200 students and five teachers participated in the pilot, in 2018-2019 the participation increased to 400 students, and in the current 2019-2020 year about 800 students in 11 schools are involved. After describing the course content and the teacher training, we briefly …

The Function Of Poetry In The Maqamat Al-Hariri, Hussam Almujalli

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Maqamat al-Hariri is one of the most notable examples of prose in Arabic literature. Called one of the most eloquent statements of medieval Arabic prose, it also serves as a religious, social, cultural, and political document of the Abbasid Caliphate. As a writer, al-Hariri became a famous figure in Arabic literature after writing his maqamat. This dissertation studies al-Hariri as a poet through his most important prose work, the Maqamat al-Hariri.

Chapter 1 of the dissertation provides an overview of the maqama genre, including its definition, themes, stylistic features, character types, a brief history of maqamat studies, …

Restored Freshwater Flow And Estuarine Benthic Communities In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico: Research Trends And Future Needs, Jillian C. Tupitza, Cassandra N. Glaspie

Faculty Publications

Restoring river connectivity to rebuild and sustain land is a promising restoration strategy in coastal areas experiencing rapid land loss, such as the Mississippi river delta. Results of these large-scale hydrologic changes are preliminary, and there exists limited empirical evidence regarding how benthic communities will respond, specifically in Barataria Bay and Breton Sound in southeast Louisiana. In this review, the body of existing research in this geographic region pertaining to the drivers of benthic community response that are related to restored freshwater flow and sediment deposition is examined. Overall trends include (1) potential displacement of some species down-estuary due to …

Critical Collapse Of A Scalar Field In Semiclassical Loop Quantum Gravity, Florencia Benítez, Rodolfo Gambini, Luis Lehner, Steve Liebling, Jorge Pullin

Faculty Publications

We study the collapse in spherical symmetry of a massless scalar field minimally coupled to gravity using the semiclassical equations that are expected from loop quantum gravity. We find the critical behavior of the mass as a function of the parameters of the initial data similar to that found by Choptuik in classical general relativity for a large set of initial data and values of the polymerization parameter. Contrary to wide expectations for quantum gravity, our semiclassical field equations have an exact scale invariance, as do the classical field equations. As one would then expect, we numerically find that the …

Attosecond Pulse Shaping Using A Seeded Free-Electron Laser, Praveen Kumar Maroju, Cesare Grazioli, Michele Di Fraia, Matteo Moioli, Dominik Ertel, Hamed Ahmadi, Oksana Plekan, Paola Finetti, Enrico Allaria, Luca Giannessi, Giovanni De Ninno, Carlo Spezzani, Giuseppe Penco, Simone Spampinati, Alexander Demidovich, Miltcho B. Danailov, Roberto Borghes, George Kourousias, Carlos Eduardo Sanches Dos Reis, Fulvio Billé, Alberto A. Lutman, Richard J. Squibb, Raimund Feifel, Paolo Carpeggiani, Maurizio Reduzzi, Tommaso Mazza, Michael Meyer, Samuel Bengtsson, Neven Ibrakovic, Emma Rose Simpson, Johan Mauritsson, Tamás Csizmadia, Mathieu Dumergue

Faculty Publications

Attosecond pulses are central to the investigation of valence- and core-electron dynamics on their natural timescales1–3. The reproducible generation and characterization of attosecond waveforms has been demonstrated so far only through the process of high-order harmonic generation4–7. Several methods for shaping attosecond waveforms have been proposed, including the use of metallic filters8,9, multilayer mirrors10 and manipulation of the driving field11. However, none of these approaches allows the flexible manipulation of the temporal characteristics of the attosecond waveforms, and they suffer from the low conversion efficiency of the high-order harmonic generation process. Free-electron lasers, by contrast, deliver femtosecond, extreme-ultraviolet and X-ray …

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. …

Quantum Fluctuating Geometries And The Information Paradox Ii, Rodrigo Eyheralde, Rodolfo Gambini, Jorge Pullin

Faculty Publications

In a previous paper we discussed corrections to Hawking radiation from a collapsing shell due to quantum fluctuations of the shell and the resulting horizon. For the computation of the quantum corrections we used several approximations. In this paper we take into account effects that were neglected in the previous one. We find important corrections including non-thermal contributions to the radiation at high frequencies and a frequency dependent time scale at which the emission of thermal radiation of frequency w cuts off. Such scale tends to infinity in the limit of a classical shell. The fact that one has almost …

Assessment Of Soil Protein And Refractory Soil Organic Matter Across Two Chronosequences Of Newly Developing Marshes In Coastal Louisiana, Usa, Stuart Alexander Mcclellan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The impacts of sea-level rise and hydrologic manipulation are threatening the stability of coastal marshes throughout the world, thereby increasing the potential for re-mineralization of soil organic matter (SOM) in these systems. Such threats have prompted marsh restoration efforts, particularly in coastal Louisiana, yet it is unclear how the slowly decomposing (refractory) and quickly decomposing (labile) fractions of SOM may be differentially affected by different approaches to marsh restoration. Additionally, otherwise labile compounds may accumulate in the soil via a range of protective mechanisms, including rapid burial and association with organic compounds that are thought to enhance soil aggregation, such …

A Randomized Controlled Trial To Reduce Sedentary Time In Rheumatoid Arthritis: Protocol And Rationale Of The Take A Stand For Health Study, Ana Jessica Pinto, Tiago Peçanha, Kamila Meireles, Fabiana Braga Benatti, Karina Bonfiglioli, Ana Lúcia De Sá Pinto, Fernanda Rodrigues Lima, Rosa Maria Rodrigues Pereira, Maria Claudia Costa Irigoyen, James Edward Turner, John P. Kirwan, Neville Owen, David W. Dunstan, Hamilton Roschel, Bruno Gualano

Division of Basic Science Faculty Publications

Background: Patients with rheumatoid arthritis spend most of their daily hours in sedentary behavior (sitting), a predisposing factor to poor health-related outcomes and all-cause mortality. Interventions focused on reducing sedentary time could be of novel therapeutic relevance. However, studies addressing this topic remain scarce. We aim to investigate the feasibility and efficacy of a newly developed intervention focused on reducing sedentary time, and potential clinical, physiological, metabolic and molecular effects in rheumatoid arthritis. Methods: The Take a STAND for Health study is a 4-month, parallel-group, randomized controlled trial, in which postmenopausal patients with rheumatoid arthritis will set individually tailored, progressive …

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 …

A Guide To Ligo-Virgo Detector Noise And Extraction Of Transient Gravitational-Wave Signals, B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, S. Abraham, F. Acernese, K. Ackley, C. Adams, V. B. Adya, C. Affeldt, M. Agathos, K. Agatsuma, N. Aggarwal, O. D. Aguiar, L. Aiello, A. Ain, P. Ajith, T. Alford, G. Allen, A. Allocca, M. A. Aloy, P. A. Altin, A. Amato, A. Ananyeva, S. B. Anderson, W. G. Anderson, S. V. Angelova, S. Antier, S. Appert, K. Arai, M. C. Araya, J. S. Areeda, M. Ar Ne, N. Arnaud

Faculty Publications

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration have cataloged eleven confidently detected gravitational-wave events during the first two observing runs of the advanced detector era. All eleven events were consistent with being from well-modeled mergers between compact stellar-mass objects: black holes or neutron stars. The data around the time of each of these events have been made publicly available through the gravitational-wave open science center. The entirety of the gravitational-wave strain data from the first and second observing runs have also now been made publicly available. There is considerable interest among the broad scientific community in understanding the data …

Expectation Values Of Coherent States For Su(2) Lattice Gauge Theories, Klaus Liegener, Ernst-Albrecht Zwicknagel

Faculty Publications

This article investigates properties of semiclassical Gauge Field Theory Coherent States for general quantum gauge theories. Useful, e.g., for the canonical formulation of Lattice Gauge Theories these states are labelled by a point in the classical phase space and constructed such that the expectation values of the canonical operators are sharply peaked on said phase space point. For the case of the non-abelian gauge group SU(2), we will explicitly compute the expectation value of general polynomials including the first order quantum corrections. This allows asking more precise questions about the quantum fluctuations of any given semiclassical system.

Bromodomain And Extraterminal Inhibition By Jq1 Produces Divergent Transcriptional Regulation Of Suppressors Of Cytokine Signaling Genes In Adipocytes, Paula Mota De Sá, Allison J. Richard, Jacqueline M. Stephens

Faculty Publications

© 2019 Endocrine Society 2019. All rights reserved. The Janus kinase-signal transducer and activator of transcription (JAK-STAT) signaling pathway has cell-specific functions. Suppressors of cytokine signaling (SOCS) proteins are negative-feedback regulators of JAK-STAT signaling. STAT5 plays a significant role in adipocyte development and function, and bromodomain and extraterminal (BET) proteins may be involved in STAT5 transcriptional activity. We treated 3T3-L1 adipocytes with the BET inhibitor JQ1 and observed that growth hormone (GH)-induced expression of 2 STAT5 target genes from the SOCS family, Socs3 and Cish, were inversely regulated (increased and decreased, respectively) by BET inhibition. Chromatin immunoprecipitation analyses revealed that …

Bromodomain And Extraterminal Inhibition By Jq1 Produces Divergent Transcriptional Regulation Of Suppressors Of Cytokine Signaling Genes In Adipocytes, Paula Mota De Sá, Allison J. Richard, Jacqueline M. Stephens

Faculty Publications

© Endocrine Society 2019. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]. The Janus kinase-signal transducer and activator of transcription (JAK-STAT) signaling pathway has cell-specific functions. Suppressors of cytokine signaling (SOCS) proteins are negative-feedback regulators of JAK-STAT signaling. STAT5 plays a significant role in adipocyte development and function, and bromodomain and extraterminal (BET) proteins may be involved in STAT5 transcriptional activity. We treated 3T3-L1 adipocytes with the BET inhibitor JQ1 and observed that growth hormone (GH)-induced expression of 2 STAT5 target genes from the SOCS family, Socs3 and Cish, were inversely regulated (increased and decreased, respectively) by BET inhibition. Chromatin …

Genomic Analysis For Virulence Determinants In Feline Herpesvirus Type-1 Isolates, Andrew C. Lewin, Lyndon M. Coghill, Gillian J. Mclellan, Ellison Bentley, Konstantin G. Kousoulas

Faculty Publications

© 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature. Feline herpesvirus type 1 (FHV-1) is a widespread cause of respiratory and ocular disease in domestic cats. A spectrum of disease severity is observed in host animals, but there has been limited prior investigation into viral genome factors which could be responsible. Stocks of FHV-1 were established from oropharyngeal swabs obtained from twenty-five cats with signs of infection housed in eight animal shelters around the USA. A standardized numerical host clinical disease severity scoring scheme was used for each cat from which an isolate was obtained. Illumina MiSeq was used …