Digital Commons Network^™

Chemotherapeutic Applications Of Rhodamine Based Nanogumbos, Nimisha Bhattarai

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The work presented in this dissertation employs nanomaterials derived from a group of uniform materials based on organic salts (GUMBOS) for selective chemotherapeutic applications. GUMBOS, similar to ionic liquids, are organic salts consisting of a bulky cationic and anionic moiety. In contrast to ionic liquids, these materials have melting points ranging from 25–250 °C, making them solid phase at room temperature. Similar to ionic liquids, GUMBOS display tunable properties, such as hydrophobicity and solubility, through counter ion variation. These tunable properties provide a variety of applications for these GUMBOS, including selective chemotherapeutics applications. The …

Low- And Middle-Income Countries Can Reduce Risks Of Subsequent Neoplasms By Referring Pediatric Craniospinal Cases To Centralized Proton Treatment Centers, Phillip J. Taddei, Nabil Khater, Bassem Youssef, Rebecca M. Howell, Wassim Jalbout, Rui Zhang, Fady B. Geara, Annelise Giebeler, Anita Mahajan, Dragan Mirkovic, Wayne D. Newhauser

Faculty Publications

Few children with cancer in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have access to proton therapy. Evidence exists to support replacing photon therapy with proton therapy to reduce the incidence of secondary malignant neoplasms (SMNs) in childhood cancer survivors. The purpose of this study was to estimate the potential reduction in SMN incidence and in SMN mortality for pediatric medulloblastoma (MB) patients in LMICs if proton therapy were made available to them. For nine children of ages 2-14 years, we calculated the equivalent dose in organs or tissues at risk for radiogenic SMNs from therapeutic and stray radiation for photon craniospinal …

Optimal Number And Location Of Storage Hubs And Biogas Production Reactors In Farmlands With Allocation Of Multiple Feedstocks, Bhaba R. Sarker, Bingqing Wu, Krishna P. Paudel

Faculty Publications

© 2017 Elsevier Inc. This paper focuses on the problem for designing a logistics system for bio-methane gas (BMG) production. In practice, farm residues such as crop residue, wood residue, and livestock manure are used in reactors as reactants to generate BMG. A multi-residue, multi-hub, multi-reactor location-allocation model is developed to design the logistics of BMG production system. Both the hubs’ and reactors’ locations, and the residue's distribution plan are investigated to minimize the total construction and logistical cost. The costs of construction, transportation, feedstocks and labor are taken into consideration to reflect the lifecycle cost of the entire undertaking. …

Difficulties Using Standardized Tests To Identify The Receptive Expressive Gap In Bilingual Children's Vocabularies, Todd A. Gibson, Linda Jarmulowicz, D. Kimbrough Oller

Faculty Publications

Receptive standardized vocabulary scores have been found to be much higher than expressive standardized vocabulary scores in children with Spanish as L1, learning L2 (English) in school (Gibson et al., 2012). Here we present evidence suggesting the receptive-expressive gap may be harder to evaluate than previously thought. We compared the performance of 116 six-year-old Spanish-English bilingual children in the US to 30 monolingual Spanish-speaking peers in Mexico across two Spanish-language standardized picture naming tests and one standardized picture pointing test. The performance of 134 monolingual English-speaking peers was compared using similar English-language tests. Results revealed the presence and magnitude of …

The Tensile Root Strength Of Emergent Coastal Macrophytes, Lauris Olivia Hollis

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Spartina patens is a dominant emergent macrophyte in fresh, intermediate, and brackish marshes along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of United States where its biomechanical properties are a key component of wetland health and resilience. Its root biomass and tensile root strength are essential for anchorage, erosion protection, and are important determinants of soil strength. Nutrients and the herbicide atrazine are suspected of negatively impacting this wetland plant and others. The objectives of this study were to: 1) ascertain the tensile root strength of five emergent coastal macrophytes in coastal estuaries, and 2) test the effects of nutrient addition, atrazine …

Gw170817: Implications For The Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background From Compact Binary Coalescences, B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, F. Acernese, K. Ackley, C. Adams, T. Adams, P. Addesso, R. X. Adhikari, V. B. Adya, C. Affeldt, M. Afrough, B. Agarwal, M. Agathos, K. Agatsuma, N. Aggarwal, O. D. Aguiar, L. Aiello, A. Ain, P. Ajith, B. Allen, G. Allen, A. Allocca, 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

Faculty Publications

The LIGO Scientific and Virgo Collaborations have announced the event GW170817, the first detection of gravitational waves from the coalescence of two neutron stars. The merger rate of binary neutron stars estimated from this event suggests that distant, unresolvable binary neutron stars create a significant astrophysical stochastic gravitational-wave background. The binary neutron star component will add to the contribution from binary black holes, increasing the amplitude of the total astrophysical background relative to previous expectations. In the Advanced LIGO-Virgo frequency band most sensitive to stochastic backgrounds (near 25 Hz), we predict a total astrophysical background with amplitude ΩGW(f=25 Hz)=1.8-1.3+2.7×10-9 with …

Identifying Apparent Local Stable Isotope Equilibrium In A Complex Non-Equilibrium System, Yuyang He, Xiaobin Cao, Jianwei Wang, Huiming Bao

Faculty Publications

Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Rationale: Although being out of equilibrium, biomolecules in organisms have the potential to approach isotope equilibrium locally because enzymatic reactions are intrinsically reversible. A rigorous approach that can describe isotope distribution among biomolecules and their apparent deviation from equilibrium state is lacking, however. Methods: Applying the concept of distance matrix in graph theory, we propose that apparent local isotope equilibrium among a subset of biomolecules can be assessed using an apparent fractionation difference (|Δα|) matrix, in which the differences between the observed isotope composition (δ') and the calculated equilibrium fractionation factor (1000lnβ) …

Identifying Apparent Local Stable Isotope Equilibrium In A Complex Non-Equilibrium System, Yuyang He, Xiaobin Cao, Jianwei Wang, Huiming Bao

Faculty Publications

Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Rationale: Although being out of equilibrium, biomolecules in organisms have the potential to approach isotope equilibrium locally because enzymatic reactions are intrinsically reversible. A rigorous approach that can describe isotope distribution among biomolecules and their apparent deviation from equilibrium state is lacking, however. Methods: Applying the concept of distance matrix in graph theory, we propose that apparent local isotope equilibrium among a subset of biomolecules can be assessed using an apparent fractionation difference (|Δα|) matrix, in which the differences between the observed isotope composition (δ') and the calculated equilibrium fractionation factor (1000lnβ) …

Approximate Reversal Of Quantum Gaussian Dynamics, Ludovico Lami, Siddhartha Das, Mark M. Wilde

Faculty Publications

Recently, there has been focus on determining the conditions under which the data processing inequality for quantum relative entropy is satisfied with approximate equality. The solution of the exact equality case is due to Petz, who showed that the quantum relative entropy between two quantum states stays the same after the action of a quantum channel if and only if there is a reversal channel that recovers the original states after the channel acts. Furthermore, this reversal channel can be constructed explicitly and is now called the Petz recovery map. Recent developments have shown that a variation of the Petz …

Microfluidic Technology And Application In Urinal Analysis, Jiwen Xiang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Microfluidic technology offers numerous advantages in minimizing and integrating the traditional assays. However, the lack of efficient control components of the microfluidic systems has been hindering the widely commercialization of the technology. The research work in this dissertation focused on the development of effective control components for microfluidic applications.

A linear peristaltic pump was firstly designed, fabricated, and tested for conventional microfluidics by synchronously compressing the microfluidic channel with a miniature cam-follower system in Chapter 2. The miniature cam-follower system and microfluidic chip was prototyped using three-dimensional (3D) printing technology and soft lithography technology. Results from experimental test showed that …

Barycentric Maps For Compactly Supported Measures, Sejong Kim, Jimmie Lawson, Yongdo Lim

Faculty Publications

After outlining the way in which an intrinsic mean G={Gn} on a complete metric space gives rise to a contractive barycentric map on some class of Borel probability measures and some basic examples of this process, we show how the resulting barycentric map gives rise to a general theory of integration of measurable functions into the space. We apply this machinery to the cone of positive invertible elements of a C⁎-algebra equipped with the Thompson metric to derive barycentric maps and their basic properties arising from the power means. Finally we derive basic results for the Karcher barycenter including its …

All-Sky Search For Long-Duration Gravitational Wave Transients In The First Advanced Ligo Observing Run, B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, M. R. Abernathy, F. Acernese, K. Ackley, C. Adams, T. Adams, P. Addesso, R. X. Adhikari, V. B. Adya, C. Affeldt, M. Agathos, K. Agatsuma, N. Aggarwal, O. D. Aguiar, L. Aiello, A. Ain, P. Ajith, B. Allen, A. Allocca, P. A. Altin, A. Ananyeva, S. B. Anderson, W. G. Anderson, S. Appert, K. Arai, M. C. Araya, J. S. Areeda, N. Arnaud, K. G. Arun, S. Ascenzi, G. Ashton

Faculty Publications

We present the results of a search for long-duration gravitational wave transients in the data of the LIGO Hanford and LIGO Livingston second generation detectors between September 2015 and January 2016, with a total observational time of 49 d. The search targets gravitational wave transients of 10500 s duration in a frequency band of 242048 Hz, with minimal assumptions about the signal waveform, polarization, source direction, time of occurrence. No significant events were observed. As a result we set 90% confidence upper limits on the rate of long-duration gravitational wave transients for different types of gravitational wave signals. We also …

Effects Of Data Quality Vetoes On A Search For Compact Binary Coalescences In Advanced Ligo's First Observing Run, B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, M. R. Abernathy, F. Acernese, K. Ackley, C. Adams, T. Adams, P. Addesso, R. X. Adhikari, V. B. Adya, C. Affeldt, M. Agathos, K. Agatsuma, N. Aggarwal, O. D. Aguiar, L. Aiello, A. Ain, B. Allen, A. Allocca, P. A. Altin, S. B. Anderson, W. G. Anderson, K. Arai, M. C. Araya, C. C. Arceneaux, J. S. Areeda, N. Arnaud, K. G. Arun, S. Ascenzi, G. Ashton, M. Ast, S. M. Aston

Faculty Publications

The first observing run of Advanced LIGO spanned 4 months, from 12 September 2015 to 19 January 2016, during which gravitational waves were directly detected from two binary black hole systems, namely GW150914 and GW151226. Confident detection of gravitational waves requires an understanding of instrumental transients and artifacts that can reduce the sensitivity of a search. Studies of the quality of the detector data yield insights into the cause of instrumental artifacts and data quality vetoes specific to a search are produced to mitigate the effects of problematic data. In this paper, the systematic removal of noisy data from analysis …

Natural And Anthropogenic Impacts On Sediment Dynamics And Preservation In Contrasting Mississippi Deltaic Coastal Environments, Jiaze Wang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Deltas worldwide share the same sinking problem in face of pressure from natural and anthropogenic activities. Many restoration strategies are being planned or have been implemented in the coasts around the world. However, many conventional hard structure constructions are energy-intensive. There are also associated uncertainties and limitations on the effectiveness and sustainability of these restoration plans. Soft or ecological engineering strategies normally take advantage of or mimic the coastal system self-response and feedbacks to natural and anthropogenic activities. The successful implementation of soft strategies relies on process-based studies on the change of complex coastal system. In addition, post-implementation monitoring work …

Innovative Monte Carlo Methods For Sampling Molecular Conformations, Aliasghar Sepehri

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Sampling molecular conformations is an important step in evaluating physical, mechanical, hydrodynamic, and optical properties of flexible molecules especially polymers. One powerful method for this purpose is configurational-bias Monte Carlo in which one random segment of a molecule is chosen, all segments toward one random end are removed, and then regrown segment by segment to produce a new geometry to be accepted/rejected according to probability laws. The advantage of this method is the ability to generate acceptable conformations that are favorable for intra- and intermolecular energies to save computational costs. However, when there are several interdependent energetic terms, trial generation …

Measurement Of The Single Π 0 Production Rate In Neutral Current Neutrino Interactions On Water, K. Abe, J. Amey, C. Andreopoulos, M. Antonova, S. Aoki, A. Ariga, Y. Ashida, S. Assylbekov, D. Autiero, S. Ban, M. Barbi, G. J. Barker, G. Barr, C. Barry, P. Bartet-Friburg, M. Batkiewicz, V. Berardi, S. Berkman, S. Bhadra, S. Bienstock, A. Blondel, S. Bolognesi, S. Bordoni, S. B. Boyd, D. Brailsford, A. Bravar, C. Bronner, M. Buizza Avanzini

Faculty Publications

The single π0 production rate in neutral current neutrino interactions on water in a neutrino beam with a peak neutrino energy of 0.6 GeV has been measured using the PØD, one of the subdetectors of the T2K near detector. The production rate was measured for data taking periods when the PØD contained water (2.64×1020 protons-on-target) and also periods without water (3.49×1020 protons-on-target). A measurement of the neutral current single π0 production rate on water is made using appropriate subtraction of the production rate with water in from the rate with water out of the target region. The subtraction analysis yields …

Reflection Positivity On Real Intervals, Palle E.T. Jorgensen, Karl Hermann Neeb, Gestur Ólafsson

Faculty Publications

We study functions f: (a, b) → R on open intervals in R with respect to various kinds of positive and negative definiteness conditions. We say that f is positive definite if the kernel f(x+y2) is positive definite. We call f negative definite if, for every h> 0 , the function e-hf is positive definite. Our first main result is a Lévy–Khintchine formula (an integral representation) for negative definite functions on arbitrary intervals. For (a, b) = (0 , ∞) it generalizes classical results by Bernstein and Horn. On a symmetric interval (- a, a) , we call f reflection …

Multigrid Methods For Saddle Point Problems: Darcy Systems, Susanne C. Brenner, Duk Soon Oh, Li Yeng Sung

Faculty Publications

We design and analyze multigrid methods for the saddle point problems resulting from Raviart–Thomas–Nédélec mixed finite element methods for the Darcy system in porous media flow. Uniform convergence of the W-cycle algorithm in a nonstandard energy norm is established. Extensions to general second order elliptic problems are also addressed.

Approaches For Approximate Additivity Of The Holevo Information Of Quantum Channels, Felix Leditzky, Eneet Kaur, Nilanjana Datta, Mark M. Wilde

Faculty Publications

We study quantum channels that are close to another channel with weakly additive Holevo information, and we derive upper bounds on their classical capacity. Examples of channels with weakly additive Holevo information are entanglement-breaking channels, unital qubit channels, and Hadamard channels. Related to the method of approximate degradability, we define approximation parameters for each class above, which measure how close an arbitrary channel is to satisfying the respective property. This gives us upper bounds on the classical capacity in terms of functions of the approximation parameters, as well as an outer bound on the dynamic capacity region of a quantum …

Investigation Of Morphological Changes In Small Coastal Rivers During Flood, Tanzina Afrin

LSU Master's Theses

The delivery of fluvial sediment to coastal margins is one of the major concerns for river and coastal morphodynamics. Relevant research has primarily focused on large rivers that transport substantial sediment load and thus are responsible for building deltaic landscapes. However, less research is concentrated on small coastal rivers. A need exists to better understand the sediment dynamics in small coastal rivers that have different backwater regimes than their larger counterparts. The main objective of this research was to examine the influence of backwater on the morphodynamics of a small coastal meandering river during a large flood event. The investigation …

Experimental Evidence Of A Pathogen Invasion Threshold, Tad A. Dallas, Martin Krkošek, John M. Drake

Faculty Publications

© 2018 The Authors. Host density thresholds to pathogen invasion separate regions of parameter space corresponding to endemic and diseasefree states. The host density threshold is a central concept in theoretical epidemiology and a common target of human and wildlife disease control programmes, but there is mixed evidence supporting the existence of thresholds, especially in wildlife populations or for pathogens with complex transmission modes (e.g. environmental transmission). Here, we demonstrate the existence of a host density threshold for an environmentally transmitted pathogen by combining an epidemiological model with a microcosm experiment. Experimental epidemics consisted of replicate populations of naive crustacean …

Extended Techniques For Intermediate Violin Students, Mariana Krewer

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

As we reach the end of the second decade of the 21st century, the performance of contemporary music is not a novelty in any concert hall. American orchestras frequently include contemporary works in their programs, and music schools offer specialized classes, ensembles, and even full degrees dedicated to contemporary music. However, for the violin, there are very few resources explaining extended techniques and other recent aesthetic innovations in a didactic manner. Most of the available material is directed at the advanced student or professional player. On the other hand, traditional instructional material often barely glosses over the 20th century repertoire, …

A 2-D Finite Element Modeling And Simulation Of 3-Roll Forming, Wenbo Zhao

LSU Master's Theses

Medium to large diameter carbon steel pipes are widely used in various applications such as gas and fluid transportation, tunnels construction and building construction. Based on manufacturing techniques and characteristics, they are mainly categorized into three categories: Seamless pipe, Butt-welded pipe and Spiral pipe. The forming of butt-welded and spiral pipe is often performed by a technique called 3-roller bending. While traditional trial-and-error method is costly, the geometry complexity, along with material nonlinearity makes exact theoretical analysis difficult unless heavy simplified assumptions are made. While the forming parameters in the 3-roller forming process of butt-welded pipe has been studied in …

An Optimizing Java Translation Framework For Automated Checkpointing And Strong Mobility, Arvind Kumar Saini

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Long-running programs, e.g., in high-performance computing, need to

write periodic checkpoints of their execution state to disk to allow

them to recover from node failure. Manually adding checkpointing code

to an application, however, is very tedious. The mechanisms needed

for writing the execution state of a program to disk and restoring it

are similar to those needed for migrating a running thread or a mobile

object. We have extended a source-to-source translation scheme that

allows the migration of mobile Java objects with running threads to

make it more general and allow it to be used for automated

checkpointing. Our translation …

The First Post-Kepler Brightness Dips Of Kic 8462852, Tabetha S. Boyajian, Roi Alonso, Alex Ammerman, David Armstrong, A. Asensio Ramos, K. Barkaoui, Thomas G. Beatty, Z. Benkhaldoun, Paul Benni, Rory O. Bentley, Andrei Berdyugin, Svetlana Berdyugina, Serge Bergeron, Allyson Bieryla, Michaela G. Blain, Alicia Capetillo Blanco, Eva H.L. Bodman, Anne Boucher, Mark Bradley, Stephen M. Brincat, Thomas G. Brink, John Briol, David J.A. Brown, J. Budaj, A. Burdanov, B. Cale, Miguel Aznar Carbo, R. Castillo Garcia, Wendy J. Clark, Geoffrey C. Clayton, James L. Clem, Phillip H. Coker, Evan M. Cook

Faculty Publications

We present a photometric detection of the first brightness dips of the unique variable star KIC 8462852 since the end of the Kepler space mission in 2013 May. Our regular photometric surveillance started in 2015 October, and a sequence of dipping began in 2017 May continuing on through the end of 2017, when the star was no longer visible from Earth. We distinguish four main 1%-2.5% dips, named "Elsie," "Celeste," "Skara Brae," and "Angkor," which persist on timescales from several days to weeks. Our main results so far are as follows: (i) there are no apparent changes of the stellar …

Amortized Entanglement Of A Quantum Channel And Approximately Teleportationsimulable Channels, Eneet Kaur, Mark M. Wilde

Faculty Publications

This paper defines the amortized entanglement of a quantum channel as the largest difference in entanglement between the output and the input of the channel, where entanglement is quantified by an arbitrary entanglement measure. We prove that the amortized entanglement of a channel obeys several desirable properties, and we also consider special cases such as the amortized relative entropy of entanglement and the amortized Rains relative entropy. These latter quantities are shown to be single-letter upper bounds on the secret-key-agreement and PPT-assisted quantum capacities of a quantum channel, respectively. Of especial interest is a uniform continuity bound for these latter …

Bounded Backstepping Through A Dynamic Extension With Delay, Frederic Mazenc, Michael Malisoff, Laurent Burlion, Victor Gibert

Faculty Publications

We provide a bounded backstepping result that ensures global asymptotic convergence for a broad class of partially linear systems with an arbitrarily large number of integrators. We use one artificial delay, and we assume that the nonlinear subsystems satisfy a converging-input-converging-state assumption. When the nonlinear subsystem is control affine with the state of the first integrator as the control, we provide sufficient conditions for our converging-input-converging-state assumption to hold. Our example illustrates the novelty and utility of our main result.

Sequential Predictors Under Time-Varying Delays: Effects Of Delayed State Observations In Dynamic Controller, Jerome Weston, Michael Malisoff, Frederic Mazenc

Faculty Publications

In a 2016 IEEE Conference on Decision and Control paper, our team designed sequential predictors for time-varying linear systems with time-varying delays, to prove global exponential stabilization properties using a feedback control that is computed in terms of the state of the last sequential predictor. This allowed feedback delays of arbitrarily large sup norm in the original system. Here we provide a significant generalization to more challenging cases with arbitrarily large feedback delay bounds, and where, in addition, current values of the plant state are not available to use in the sequential predictors. We illustrate our work in a pendulum …

A Case Study: The Attitudes Of A Teaching Assistant Of French Toward Instructional Technology, Farida Emelia Ngandu Tshiebue

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Technology has shaped the personal experiences of Teaching Assistants (TAs) of French at the collegiate level in the United States (US), what they feel about the technology tools that are accessible in their work environment, and how they use these tools in their practice of teaching. Yet, there is limited research on the specific topic of the attitudes of TAs of French toward the instructional technologies that are available to them. This study sought to investigate the attitudes of a singular TA of French at a southern US university toward instructional technology (IT) by exploring the dynamics of IT use …

Image-Based Modeling Of Flow Through Porous Media: Development Of Multiscale Techniques For The Pore Level, Timothy Wayne Thibodeaux

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Increasingly, imaging technology allows porous media problems to be modeled at microscopic and sub-microscopic levels with finer resolution. However, the physical domain size required to be representative of the media prohibits comprehensive micro-scale simulation. A hybrid or multiscale approach is necessary to overcome this challenge. In this work, a technique was developed for determining the characteristic scales of porous materials, and a multiscale modeling methodology was developed to better understand the interaction/dependence of phenomena occurring at different microscopic scales. The multiscale method couples microscopic simulations at the pore and sub-pore scales. Network modeling is a common pore-scale technique which employs …