Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Digital Commons Network™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Louisiana State University

Discipline
Keyword
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 7081 - 7110 of 9887

Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network

Examining Sponsorship And Cosponsorship In The U.S. House Of Representatives, 1973-2002, Kelly Marie Burke Jan 2005

Examining Sponsorship And Cosponsorship In The U.S. House Of Representatives, 1973-2002, Kelly Marie Burke

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this paper is to uncover the effects of background characteristics on members of Congress' legislative activity. I intend to measure legislative activity using the total number of bills sponsored and cosponsored during each Congress. Beginning in 1973, this original dataset includes over 6,000 observations and is the most comprehensive study of this subject. Because my dataset begins in 1973, I will be able to identify any effect that the unrestricted ability to cosponsor, which began in 1978, had on legislative activeness. It is my intention to contribute to our scholarly understanding of sponsorship and cosponsorship activity in …

Go to article

Growth Of A Slash Pine Spacing Study Five Years After Thinning, Jamie Camille Schexnayder Jan 2005

Growth Of A Slash Pine Spacing Study Five Years After Thinning, Jamie Camille Schexnayder

LSU Master's Theses

In 1994, a 17 yr old, slash pine spacing study was thinned to 35% of the maximum stand density to evaluate the influence of prethinning stand conditions on postthinning growth after thinning to a common stand density. It was expected that plots thinned to a common growing stock level should have equal growth increments and if growth was not equal then the difference was related to prethinning stand conditions. Stand growth variables of quadratic mean diameter increment, stand-level basal area increment, and gross-volume increment were evaluated to determine the influence of initial spacing, stand density, and prethinning crown size before …

Go to article

Quantitative Clay Mineralogy Of Several Louisiana Soils, Johan Forsman Jan 2005

Quantitative Clay Mineralogy Of Several Louisiana Soils, Johan Forsman

LSU Master's Theses

A method was developed to simplify the approach to obtaining a better quantitative representation (QR) of complex clay mineral assemblages by XRD analysis. The method has eight steps: 1) preparation of samples with preferred orientation; 2) qualitative identification of phases; 3) peak decomposition to obtain precise locations of individual peaks contained within broad diffraction bands; 4) creation of a library of theoretical XRD patterns by modeling of one-dimensional XRD patterns; 5) selection of experimental library patterns; 6) employing the LINEST function found in common spreadsheet software to fit library patterns to experimental patterns; 7) evaluation of results to determine needed …

Go to article

Identification Of 'Structural Alerts' And Associated Mechanisms Of Action Of Mammary Gland Carcinogens In Female Rodents, Shanna Tommika Moss Jan 2005

Identification Of 'Structural Alerts' And Associated Mechanisms Of Action Of Mammary Gland Carcinogens In Female Rodents, Shanna Tommika Moss

LSU Master's Theses

A new structure-activity relationship (SAR) approach to modeling was utilized to study mammary gland carcinogens. A set of chemicals tested for mammary tumorigenesis that have been analyzed in the Carcinogenic Potency Database (CPDB) were subjected to several computational analyses in an attempt to predict each chemical’s carcinogenic potential. A total of six learning sets (rat and mouse mammary gland carcinogen, CPDB rat and mouse, and female-specific rodent models) were developed and validated using a SAR modeling algorithm called categorical-SAR (cat-SAR). The predictive cat-SAR program evaluates active and inactive compounds of known biological activity and predicts their biological activity from this …

Go to article

Reciprocal Peer Tutoring And Treatment Integrity Of Elementary School Students, Brian M. Esteve Jan 2005

Reciprocal Peer Tutoring And Treatment Integrity Of Elementary School Students, Brian M. Esteve

LSU Master's Theses

Academic concerns are the most common reason students are referred for special services in schools. This obviously leads to the necessity for schools to have secondary prevention services in place to address the needs of students who are struggling. Peer tutoring, in its various forms, has been well documented as an effective and inexpensive intervention for all academic areas. Despite the promise of peer tutoring, research evidence suggests that teachers may not consistently carry out their roles in the peer tutoring process with sufficient accuracy to ensure positive outcomes. One possible solution to this problem is to have a consultant …

Go to article

Modeling And Experimentation Of Drying Of Adipose Derived Adult Stem Cells, Surbhi Mittal Jan 2005

Modeling And Experimentation Of Drying Of Adipose Derived Adult Stem Cells, Surbhi Mittal

LSU Master's Theses

Development of protocols for storing desiccated cells at ambient temperatures offers tremendous economic and practical advantages over traditional storage procedures such as cryopreservation and freeze-drying. An integrated frame work of experimentation and modeling is adopted in the present work to develop procedures for storage of adult stem cells at ambient temperature. As a first step, we have measured the post-rehydration membrane integrity of two passages, Passage-0 (P0) and Passage-1 (P1), of human adipose-derived stem cells (hASCs). hASCs were dried using a convective stage at three different drying rates (slow, moderate and rapid) in D-PBS with trehalose (50 mM) and glycerol …

Go to article

Offshore Oil And Gas Platforms As Stepping Stones For Expansion Of Coral Communities: A Molecular Genetic Analysis, Amy D. Atchison Jan 2005

Offshore Oil And Gas Platforms As Stepping Stones For Expansion Of Coral Communities: A Molecular Genetic Analysis, Amy D. Atchison

LSU Master's Theses

The northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) is one of the most productive oil and gas exploration areas in the world, currently containing approximately 3,800 offshore platforms. These platforms serve as artificial reefs in shallow water, which until their introduction was nearly devoid of shallow hard substrata. The question is raised whether this newly available substrate could help expand coral populations in the GOM. In this study, I examined adult scleractinian corals on oil and gas platforms in the northern GOM, in the vicinity of the Flower Garden Banks (FGB; approximately 180 km SE of Galveston, Texas) and attempted to determine …

Go to article

Assessment Of Water Conservation Technique In Rice Culture To Develop Water Use Policies, Manoch Kongchum Jan 2005

Assessment Of Water Conservation Technique In Rice Culture To Develop Water Use Policies, Manoch Kongchum

LSU Master's Theses

The rapid growth of world population has resulted in significantly increased global water demand. According to a recent report on limited water supply, conservation techniques and water use policies are needed to preserve water resources. Worldwide agriculture is the largest consumer of water, particularly for growing rice. Water use for rice production was chosen because rice will continue to be a staple crop for the majority of the world’s population and because of its pervasive use of water. Hence, this thesis was designed to investigate water conservation possibilities for rice production in two water management regimes: alternate flooding and drying, …

Go to article

Economic Evaluation Of Potential Changes In Farm Program Price Support For Typical Louisiana Rice And Cotton Farming Operations, Manuel E. Aldana Jan 2005

Economic Evaluation Of Potential Changes In Farm Program Price Support For Typical Louisiana Rice And Cotton Farming Operations, Manuel E. Aldana

LSU Master's Theses

Increased government deficit has led the congress to reduce federal spending. Proposed budget cuts are intended to decrease government spending in several areas, including agriculture. Reductions in farm program spending could cause significant adverse effects on the financial situation of many farms, particularly to rice and cotton enterprises, due to their high reliance on farm program payments as a source of income. Representative rice and cotton operations of one, two, three, and four entities as single crop enterprises were considered and developed for use in this study. Farm enterprise sizes were determined by estimating the acreage level at which a …

Go to article

A Study Of Distributed Clustering Of Vector Time Series On The Grid By Task Farming, Arun B. Nayar Jan 2005

A Study Of Distributed Clustering Of Vector Time Series On The Grid By Task Farming, Arun B. Nayar

LSU Master's Theses

Traditional data mining methods were limited by availability of computing resources like network bandwidth, storage space and processing power. These algorithms were developed to work around this problem by looking at a small cross-section of the whole data available. However since a major chunk of the data is kept out, the predictions were generally inaccurate and missed out on significant features that was part of the data. Today with resources growing at almost the same pace as data, it is possible to rethink mining algorithms to work on distributed resources and essentially distributed data. Distributed data mining thus holds great …

Go to article

Palimpsest Encounters: A Baseline Study Of Federal, Antebellum, And Postbellum New Orleans Gardens Using The Notarial Archives Drawings, Cecilia L. Mcnab Jan 2005

Palimpsest Encounters: A Baseline Study Of Federal, Antebellum, And Postbellum New Orleans Gardens Using The Notarial Archives Drawings, Cecilia L. Mcnab

LSU Master's Theses

The focus of this thesis is to establish a basis for a typology of New Orleans gardens from 19th Century Notarial drawings. Previous inquires of the New Orleans Notarial Archives drawings emphasized elite gardens of the Vieux Carré and Garden District. This baseline study investigates both vernacular and elite gardens of 159 drawings in the three oldest of the city Municipal Districts during the period 1810-1880, and identifies 19 garden templates. It sets the drawings in their social, political, and historical context to inform a critical understanding of the garden types. The inquiry examines 47 spatial and design variables, using …

Go to article

Water Quality Modeling For Unconventional Bod, Trieu Van Le Jan 2005

Water Quality Modeling For Unconventional Bod, Trieu Van Le

LSU Master's Theses

Predictions of the dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration in a stream are sensitive to the choice of Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) reaction model which frequently is assumed to be first order, although published BOD data sets from analyses of samples from rivers show that many are described best by second order or three-halves order BOD reaction. Two DO models for a stream are developed, one with a second order and the other with a three-halves order BOD reaction. The DO equations are solved using Laplace transform method which simplifies the mathematical solution of the model equations by avoiding difficult to evaluate …

Go to article

Liquid Architectures: Marcos Novak's Territory Of Information, Camile A. Silva Jan 2005

Liquid Architectures: Marcos Novak's Territory Of Information, Camile A. Silva

LSU Master's Theses

The idea of interactivity between humans and their environment no longer represents the only way of exploring new experiences. Equally passé is the idea that information constitutes the means for this interaction. However, this paper presents that the contemporary idea for interaction has embraced new understandings of the content of experience and the structure of space. New electronic technologies and advanced digital media have separated realities from the realm of the body and transformed experiences into a ubiquitous event. The architectural discourse, that once has been largely a discourse of form and style, has finally overcome those limitations and has …

Go to article

Experimental Investigation Of Dynamic Interfacial Interactions At Reservoir Conditions, Wei Xu Jan 2005

Experimental Investigation Of Dynamic Interfacial Interactions At Reservoir Conditions, Wei Xu

LSU Master's Theses

Much of the research on wettability in the existing literature has been done using stocktank oils and at ambient conditions. The main objective of this study is therefore to examine the validity of ambient measurements in inferring in-situ reservoir wettability. For this purpose, Drop-Shape-Analysis for interfacial tension and Dual-Drop-Dual-Crystal (DDDC) contact angle measurements have been carried out using dolomite rock, Yates reservoir stocktank and live crude oils and Yates synthetic brine at Yates reservoir conditions of 82oF and 700 psi. Two types of surfactants (nonionic and anionic) in varying concentrations have been used to study the effect of surfactants on …

Go to article

Effects Of White-Tailed Deer Herbivory On The Growth And Survival Of Seedlings In A Coastal Wetland Forest, Seth Taylor Bordelon Jan 2005

Effects Of White-Tailed Deer Herbivory On The Growth And Survival Of Seedlings In A Coastal Wetland Forest, Seth Taylor Bordelon

LSU Master's Theses

Studies in upland forests of the northeastern and upper mid-western U.S. indicate that high densities of white-tailed deer can reduce vegetation abundance, survival, and richness through over-browsing. In the southern U.S., few studies have examined the effects of deer herbivory on vegetation, and even fewer have done so in forested wetlands. At Jean Lafitte National Park's Barataria Preserve in south Louisiana, managers were concerned that white-tailed deer were concentrating and limiting forest regeneration near a walking trail, where hunting is not allowed. An exclosure study was started there in December 2002 and was conducted through July 2004 to quantify the …

Go to article

Visualization Based On Interactive Clipping: Application To Confocal Data, Gaurav Khanduja Jan 2005

Visualization Based On Interactive Clipping: Application To Confocal Data, Gaurav Khanduja

LSU Master's Theses

We have explored how clipping can be exploited in an interactive manner to visualize massive three-dimensional datasets. In essence, the proposed interactive clipping approach involves the dynamic adjustment of the clipping plane to expose any cross-section of the volume data and subsequent adjustment of the clipped surface to the best view position using a combination of rotation and translation. The thesis describes the design, implementation and application of our interactive-clipping-based visualization system. The implementation is done with OpenGL and C++, thus resulting in a highly portable and flexible system. For illustration, two types of scientific datasets, confocal data of a …

Go to article

Associations Of Avian And Herpetofauna Communities With Forest Management At Multiple Spatial Scales, Holly Grace Legrand Jan 2005

Associations Of Avian And Herpetofauna Communities With Forest Management At Multiple Spatial Scales, Holly Grace Legrand

LSU Master's Theses

Decline of amphibians, reptiles, and numerous Neotropical migrant birds has been attributed to habitat destruction and alteration, which warrants examination of these groups in managed forests and their association with habitat characteristics at multiple spatial scales. We surveyed avifauna and herpetofauna communities in 3 managed forests in Louisiana during 2003-2004. Study areas included Sherburne Wildlife Management Area (WMA), a bottomland hardwood forest under uneven-aged management, Ben’s Creek WMA, an even-aged, short-rotation loblolly pine plantation, and Sandy Hollow WMA, a longleaf pine-savannah maintained with prescribed fire. Field techniques included surveys consisting of avian point counts, drift fence arrays (PFFT), cover boards, …

Go to article

Putting Down Roots In Environmental Literacy: A Study Of Middle School Students' Participation In Louisiana Sea Grant's Coastal Roots Project, Rachel L. Somers Jan 2005

Putting Down Roots In Environmental Literacy: A Study Of Middle School Students' Participation In Louisiana Sea Grant's Coastal Roots Project, Rachel L. Somers

LSU Master's Theses

Few people realize that in Louisiana land is lost to open water at about a rate of 24 square miles a year, faster than anywhere else in the world (Barras, Beville, Britsch, Hartley, Hawes, Jonston, Kemp, Kinler, Martucci, Porthouse, Reed, Roy, Sapkota, & Suhayda, 2003). Not only is the public low to moderately environmentally literate, there is a need to reach students early on to ensure the greatest benefit. This is the main reason why Louisiana Sea Grant¡¦s Coastal Roots Wetland Seedling Nursery Project (Coastal Roots) came into inception. The goal of the project is to improve environmental literacy of …

Go to article

Molluscan Taphonomy As A Proxy For Recognizing Fossil Seagrass Beds, Jill Suzanne Leonard-Pingel Jan 2005

Molluscan Taphonomy As A Proxy For Recognizing Fossil Seagrass Beds, Jill Suzanne Leonard-Pingel

LSU Master's Theses

Seagrass beds, important marine ecosystems both economically and environmentally, have a poor fossil record. As a result, little is known about the geographic distribution of seagrasses over historic and geologic time, or their abundance when unaltered by anthropogenic effects. The purpose of this study is to define a taphonomic signature unique to seagrass beds that can be used as a proxy for identifying the seagrass habitat in the fossil record. In order to develop this proxy, sediment samples from Recent seagrass and non-seagrass environments were collected, and the molluscan bioclasts from these samples were categorically ranked for the following taphonomic …

Go to article

Using Ground Penetrating Radar, Light Detection And Ranging, Geodetic Leveling, And Area Hydrogeology To Study The Baton Rouge And Scotlandville Faults, East Baton Rouge Parish, La, Angela Mooi Thomas Jan 2005

Using Ground Penetrating Radar, Light Detection And Ranging, Geodetic Leveling, And Area Hydrogeology To Study The Baton Rouge And Scotlandville Faults, East Baton Rouge Parish, La, Angela Mooi Thomas

LSU Master's Theses

East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, is situated on at least two faults, the Baton Rouge Fault and the Denham Springs-Scotlandville Fault. These faults have surface expressions in the form of escarpments and damage to man-made structures. The purpose of this thesis is to study these faults in the shallow subsurface, in climate and soils found in Louisiana, and to study their ability to block fluid flow and whether groundwater withdrawal influences the amount and rate of subsidence along these faults. Techniques used to gather field data or to research and compile previously acquired data for this thesis includes: Ground Penetrating …

Go to article

Cognitive Memory Effects On Non-Linear Video-Based Learning, Katherine Renee Comeaux Jan 2005

Cognitive Memory Effects On Non-Linear Video-Based Learning, Katherine Renee Comeaux

LSU Master's Theses

During an informative learning process, information, material, facts and ideas are typically conveyed in a linear arrangement. Individuals are frequently distracted during this process with their attention being diverted to an interruption (Internet, phone call, etc). When presented with any new information, the mind evolves through problem solving and evaluation procedures. The way in which that information is processed and perceived depends on: (a) original presentation (b) examination of material and (c) an individualistic measurement of success. However, when faced with an interruption, the person is forced to deal with non-linear arrangement of information. This research investigates nonlinear presentation or …

Go to article

Platform Recruited Reef Fish, Phase I: Do Platforms Provide Habitat That Increase The Survival Of Juvenile Reef Fishes?, Lauren Kay Nowling Jan 2005

Platform Recruited Reef Fish, Phase I: Do Platforms Provide Habitat That Increase The Survival Of Juvenile Reef Fishes?, Lauren Kay Nowling

LSU Master's Theses

There are currently over 4000 functioning oil and gas platforms in the northern Gulf of Mexico (Gulf). Platform operations, and their prior drilling operations, produce trace amounts of lead, barium, vanadium, and lanthanum residues that are leached into the surrounding waters and are deposited on the sea floor. These residues have isotopic ratios different from those typical of the Gulf seafloor and can be used as harmless ‘fingerprints’ if they become incorporated into hard-parts or tissues in fishes associated with oil and gas platforms. From 2002 to 2004, 115 red snapper were collected from oil and gas platforms and artificial …

Go to article

Remote Power Delivery For Hybrid Integrated Bio-Implantable Electrical Stimulation System, Venkat Reddy Gaddam Jan 2005

Remote Power Delivery For Hybrid Integrated Bio-Implantable Electrical Stimulation System, Venkat Reddy Gaddam

LSU Master's Theses

Bio-implantable devices such as heart pacers, gastric pacers and drug-delivery systems require power for carrying out their intended functions. These devices are usually powered through a battery implanted with the system or are wired to an external power source. In this work, a remote power delivery system (RPDS) is considered as a means to charge rechargeable batteries that power a Bio-implanted Electrical Stimulation System (BESS). A loosely coupled inductive power transmitter and receiver system has been designed to recharge batteries for a bio-implanted gastric pacer. The transmitter coil is periodically worn around the waist. The receiver coil, rechargeable batteries, battery-charging …

Go to article

Mathematical Models For Estimating Volatile Chemical Emissions From Dredging Operations, Kenneth Alexander Fountain Jan 2005

Mathematical Models For Estimating Volatile Chemical Emissions From Dredging Operations, Kenneth Alexander Fountain

LSU Master's Theses

Dredging operations have been a common remediation for contaminated sediment in an effort to reduce the harmful impact on the environment. The objective of this research was to create models used for estimating chemical release to air from remediating the Indiana Harbor and Canal (IHC) as three separate dredging operations; the Dredge Site, Exposed DM CDF, and Ponded CDF. The evaporative flux estimations are based on a two-resistance mass transport path inclusive of both the molecular diffusion in porous media and interfacial airside mass transport resistances. Several chemodynamic algorithms were used in calculating key transport parameters. Laboratory tests were performed …

Go to article

Sensorsimulator: Simulation Framework For Sensor Networks, Cariappa D. Mallanda Jan 2005

Sensorsimulator: Simulation Framework For Sensor Networks, Cariappa D. Mallanda

LSU Master's Theses

Wireless sensor networks have the potential to become significant subsystems of engineering applications. Before relegating important and safety-critical tasks to such subsystems, it is necessary to understand the dynamic behavior of these subsystems in simulation environments. There is an urgent need to develop a simulation platform that is useful to explore both the networking issues and the distributed computing aspects of wireless sensor networks. Current approaches to simulating wireless sensor networks largely focus on the networking issues. These approaches use well-known network simulation tools that are often difficult to extend to explore distributed computing issues. Discrete-event simulation is a trusted …

Go to article

Development Of Software To Process Aerial Images For Agricultural Purposes, Sirisha Polsapalli Jan 2005

Development Of Software To Process Aerial Images For Agricultural Purposes, Sirisha Polsapalli

LSU Master's Theses

Remote sensing has been used in precision agriculture for monitoring crop health, weed management, detecting nutrient stress, and yield forecasting. One method of implementing remote sensing is through aerial imagery. Aerial imagery is being used in precision agriculture for a variety causes such as to detect crop stress, fertilizer skips and overlaps, nitrogen excesses and deficiencies and detect irregular or reduced crop stand. These crop features are noted by extracting spectral information from the images. The spectral data is obtained from the images by using software programs. The software programs process the images one at a time or assemble them …

Go to article

Naturally-Derived Porphyrin And Chlorin Photosensitizers For Photodynamic Therapy, Jodie Angela Hargus Jan 2005

Naturally-Derived Porphyrin And Chlorin Photosensitizers For Photodynamic Therapy, Jodie Angela Hargus

LSU Master's Theses

In oncologic applications of photodynamic therapy (PDT), the discriminating localization of porphyrin-type compounds in solid tumors is exploited for the selective ablation of neoplastic tissue with minimal destruction and irritation to normal tissue. PDT is a locoregional, binary cancer therapy in which a photosensitizer—light-activated drug—absorbs light of an appropriate wavelength and excites to the singlet state. This photosensitizer in the excited singlet state can undergo an internal transition to the excited triplet state, a relatively long-lived and high-energy species that transfers its excess energy to molecular oxygen. Molecular oxygen subsequently excites from the stable triplet state to the highly reactive …

Go to article

Modification Of Ct Quality Assurance Phantom For Pet/Ct Alignment And Pet Resolution, Prashanth K. Nookala Jan 2005

Modification Of Ct Quality Assurance Phantom For Pet/Ct Alignment And Pet Resolution, Prashanth K. Nookala

LSU Master's Theses

Radiotherapy treatment planning utilizing PET and CT is rapidly gaining acceptance in oncology. A limiting factor of the dual modality is the PET/CT alignment. A small error in PET/CT alignment may result in giving large doses of radiation to healthy tissues as a result of poor treatment planning. For this purpose, regular quality assurance testing of PET/CT must be performed. Separate QA procedures and phantoms have been developed for the two different modalities. In particular, many existing phantoms cannot be used for both modalities, which is a requirement for evaluating PET/CT alignment. Our goal is to evaluate several existing phantom …

Go to article

Spotted Sea Trout (Cynoscion Nebulosus) And Pinfish (Lagodon Rhomboides) Dietary Analysis According To Habitat Type, Micah Russell Jan 2005

Spotted Sea Trout (Cynoscion Nebulosus) And Pinfish (Lagodon Rhomboides) Dietary Analysis According To Habitat Type, Micah Russell

LSU Master's Theses

The diets of a transitory fish (spotted sea trout, Cynoscion nebulosus) and a fish with presumed greater site-fidelity (pinfish, Lagodon rhomboides) were analyzed with respect to habitat. Sampling occurred in Barataria Bay, Louisiana between May 2003 and May 2004. Spotted sea trout were caught using gillnets, and pinfish were caught using baited fish traps. Each gear was used on three habitats: mud bottom, oyster shell, and marsh edge. In addition, sampling for spotted sea trout was repeated at three locations along a salinity gradient. A total of 175 spotted sea trout stomachs and 137 pinfish stomachs were examined. Seventeen prey …

Go to article

Mesoscopic Simulation Of Grain Boundary Diffusion Creep In Inhomogeneous Microstructures, Kanishk Rastogi Jan 2005

Mesoscopic Simulation Of Grain Boundary Diffusion Creep In Inhomogeneous Microstructures, Kanishk Rastogi

LSU Master's Theses

At high temperatures, stresses well below the material’s tensile yield strength can induce permanent deformation over a period of time. This time-dependent progressive deformation of a material at constant stress is called Creep and is observed in both crystalline and non-crystalline solids. The principal deformation processes contributing to creep deformation are slip, sub-grain formation and grain-boundary sliding. Mechanisms involving creep of crystalline materials involve either dislocation motion or diffusional flow of atoms or both. Extensive studies have been done to ascertain the creep mechanism in various regimes of temperature and applied stresses. At low stresses and high temperatures, grain boundary …

Go to article

First Prev Next Last