Digital Commons Network^™

Upper Bounds For The Lagrangian Cobordism Relation On Legendrian Links, Joshua M. Sabloff, David Shea Vela-Vick, C. M.Michael Wong

Faculty Publications

Lagrangian cobordism induces a preorder on the set of Legendrian links in any contact 3–manifold. We show that any finite collection of null-homologous Legendrian links in a contact 3–manifold with a common rotation number has an upper bound with respect to the preorder. In particular, we construct an exact Lagrangian cobordism from each element of the collection to a common Legendrian link. This construction allows us to define a notion of minimal Lagrangian genus between any two null-homologous Legendrian links with a common rotation number.

Lsu General Catalog 2024-2025, Louisiana State University And Agricultural And Mechanical College

LSU General Catalog

The LSU General Catalog describes all undergraduate and graduate departments and programs with degree requirements and courses offered for each one. The LSU General Catalog includes information on registration and financial aid as well as academic services offered to all students.

Timing And Evolution Of Structures Within The Southeastern Greater Caucasus And Kura Fold-Thrust Belt From Multiproxy Sediment Provenance Records, Adam M. Forte, Eric S. Cowgill, Dawn Y. Sumner, Dominique I. Garello, Nathan A. Niemi, K. Colton Fowler

Faculty Publications

The Greater Caucasus (GC) mountains are the locus of post-Pliocene shortening within the northcentral Arabia-Eurasia collision. Although recent low-temperature thermochronology constrains the timing of orogen formation, the evolution of major structures remains enigmatic—particularly regarding the internal kinematics within this young orogen and the associated Kura Fold-Thrust Belt (KFTB), which flanks its southeastern margin. Here we use a multiproxy provenance analysis to investigate the tectonic history of both the southeastern GC and KFTB by presenting new data from a suite of sandstone samples from the KFTB, including sandstone petrography, whole-rock geochemistry, and detrital zircon (DZ) U-Pb geochronology. To define source terranes …

Molecular And Cellular Programs Underlying The Development Of Bovine Pre-Implantation Embryos, Zongliang Jiang

Faculty Publications

Early embryonic mortality is a major cause of infertility in cattle, yet the underlying molecular causes remain a mystery. Over the past half century, assisted reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilisation and somatic cell nuclear transfer have been used to improve cattle reproductive efficiency; however, reduced embryo developmental potential is seen compared to their in vivo counterparts. Recent years have seen exciting progress across bovine embryo research, including genomic profiling of embryogenesis, new methods for improving embryo competence, and experimenting on building bovine embryos from stem cell cultures. These advances are beginning to define bovine embryo molecular and cellular …

Louisiana Survey 2024, Lsu Reilly Center For Media & Public Affairs

Reilly Center Louisiana Surveys

The 2024 Louisiana Survey is the latest in an annual series of statewide surveys from the Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs at Louisiana State University’s Manship School of Mass Communication.

Reflecting the continuing evolution of survey research, we used two approaches for this year’s survey. First, we used our traditional probability-sampling approach to draw landline and cell phone numbers for a live-interview telephone survey. Second, in partnership with the research firm YouGov, we administered an online survey to a nonprobability sample of Louisiana residents who participate in the YouGov panel. We use statistical weights in the analysis …

Fitness Promotion In College: The Relationships Among Students’ Perceived Physical Literacy, Knowledge, And Physical Fitness, Bin Long, Yang Liu, Senlin Chen, Yiwu Yang, Suna Tang, Jimei Yang, Yuhuai Wang

Faculty Publications

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among perceived physical literacy (PPL), knowledge of physical activity and fitness (PAF knowledge), and physical fitness. Methods: Undergraduates (N = 968, female = 414; Mage = 18.64) from a public university in central China completed a simplified Chinese version of the PPL instrument, an online test for PAF knowledge, and seven health-related physical fitness tests. The PPL includes three dimensions: (a) confidence and physical competence, (b) motivation, and (c) interaction with the environment. The fitness tests measured lung capacity, body mass index (BMI), and performances in 800 (female)/1000 (male) …

Editorial: Digital Technology In The Management And Prevention Of Diabetes, Yun Shen, Xiantong Zou, Gang Hu

Population and Public Health Science Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Dietary Intakes Of Branch Chained Amino Acids And Obesity Risk Among Chinese Gestational Diabetes Women, Xiaoyun Yang, Weiqin Li, Wei Li, Huikun Liu, Leishen Wang, Junhong Leng, Yuxin Fan, Xilin Yang, Ming Liu, Gang Hu

Population and Public Health Science Faculty Publications

Introduction: Epidemiological studies have assessed the correlation between daily dietary branch chain amino acid (BCAA) intakes and the risk of obesity, however, the findings from these studies were inconsistent and investigations among GDM women were few. Objective: The present study was to investigate the associations of daily BCAA intakes with the risks of overweight and abdominal obesity among women with prior gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) postpartum. Method: We performed a cross-sectional study of 1,263 women with prior GDM at 1–5 years post-delivery. Logistic regression models were used to estimate the associations of daily dietary intakes of BCAAs with the risks …

Variant Of The Lactase Lct Gene Explains Association Between Milk Intake And Incident Type 2 Diabetes, Kai Luo, Guo Chong Chen, Yanbo Zhang, Jee Young Moon, Jiaqian Xing, Brandilyn A. Peters, Mykhaylo Usyk, Zheng Wang, Gang Hu, Jun Li, Elizabeth Selvin, Casey M. Rebholz, Tao Wang, Carmen R. Isasi, Bing Yu, Rob Knight, Eric Boerwinkle, Robert D. Burk, Robert C. Kaplan, Qibin Qi

Population and Public Health Science Faculty Publications

Cow’s milk is frequently included in the human diet, but the relationship between milk intake and type 2 diabetes (T2D) remains controversial. Here, using data from the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos, we show that in both sexes, higher milk intake is associated with lower risk of T2D in lactase non-persistent (LNP) individuals (determined by a variant of the lactase LCT gene, single nucleotide polymorphism rs4988235) but not in lactase persistent individuals. We validate this finding in the UK Biobank. Further analyses reveal that among LNP individuals, higher milk intake is associated with alterations in gut microbiota (for example, …

Monitoring Of Wave, Current, And Sediment Dynamics Along The Fog Point Living Shoreline, Glenn Martin National Wildlife Refuge, Maryland, Hongqing Wang, Qin Chen, William D. Capurso, Lukasz M. Niemoczynski, Nan Wang, Ling Zhu, Gregg A. Snedden, Matt Whitbeck, Carol A. Wilson, Michael Brownley

Faculty Publications

Living shorelines with salt marsh species, rock breakwaters, and sand nourishment were built along the coastal areas in the Glenn Martin National Wildlife Refuge, Maryland, in 2016 in response to Hurricane Sandy (2012). The Fog Point living shoreline at Glenn Martin National Wildlife Refuge was designed with the “headland - breakwater - embayment” pattern. Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, Northeastern University, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Louisiana State University studied wave, current, and sediment dynamics to assess the effectiveness of the Fog Point living shoreline structures in terms of wave attenuation and erosion reduction. Wave gages, current meters, …

An Examination Of Homo Naledi Early Juveniles Recovered From The Rising Star Cave System, South Africa, Juliet K. Brophy, Debra R. Bolter, Marina Elliott, John Hawks, Lee R. Berger

Faculty Publications

Background: Six Homo naledi early juveniles were recovered from U.W. 101 (Dinaledi Chamber), U.W. 102 (Lesedi Chamber), and U.W. 110 in the Rising Star cave system. Aim: This paper develops the information for the H. naledi early juvenile life stage, as defined by a combination of deciduous and permanent dentition, and the eruption of the first permanent molar. Subjects and methods: The growing number of young individuals recovered from the Rising Star cave system allows us to gain a better understanding of their variation, or lack thereof, and provides a basis to estimate broad ranges for age at death of …

Flooded Mangrove Landscapes Hide Ancient Maya Coastal Sites In Belize, Heather I. Mckillop

Faculty Publications

Evidence of ancient Maya exploitation of salt, other marine resources, settlement, and sea trade is hidden in flooded mangrove landscapes on the cays, mainland, and in shallow offshore locations on the south coast of Belize. This article includes a discussion of the coastal economy from the Middle Preclassic through the Postclassic periods (600 B.C.–A.D. 1500). Data from sites discovered and excavated since 1982 in the coastal area of the Port Honduras and Paynes Creek National Park support a model of coastal reliance on marine resources and tree crops. The need for a regular supply of coastal salt to inland cities …

Convolution-Transformer For Image Feature Extraction, Lirong Yin, Lei Wang, Siyu Lu, Ruiyang Wang, Youshuai Yang, Bo Yang, Shan Liu, Ahmed Alsanad, Salman A. Alqahtani, Zhengtong Yin, Xiaolu Li, Xiaobing Chen, Wenfeng Zheng

Faculty Publications

This study addresses the limitations of Transformer models in image feature extraction, particularly their lack of inductive bias for visual structures. Compared to Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), the Transformers are more sensitive to different hyperparameters of optimizers, which leads to a lack of stability and slow convergence. To tackle these challenges, we propose the Convolution-based Efficient Transformer Image Feature Extraction Network (CEFormer) as an enhancement of the Transformer architecture. Our model incorporates E-Attention, depthwise separable convolution, and dilated convolution to introduce crucial inductive biases, such as translation invariance, locality, and scale invariance, into the Transformer framework. Additionally, we implement a …

Afbnet: A Lightweight Adaptive Feature Fusion Module For Super-Resolution Algorithms, Lirong Yin, Lei Wang, Siyu Lu, Ruiyang Wang, Haitao Ren, Ahmed Alsanad, Salman A. Alqahtani, Zhengtong Yin, Xiaolu Li, Wenfeng Zheng

Faculty Publications

At present, super-resolution algorithms are employed to tackle the challenge of low image resolution, but it is difficult to extract differentiated feature details based on various inputs, resulting in poor generalization ability. Given this situation, this study first analyzes the features of some feature extraction modules of the current super-resolution algorithm and then proposes an adaptive feature fusion block (AFB) for feature extraction. This module mainly comprises dynamic convolution, attention mechanism, and pixel-based gating mechanism. Combined with dynamic convolution with scale information, the network can extract more differentiated feature information. The introduction of a channel spatial attention mechanism combined with …

Afterword: Moses And The Modern Germans: The Lawgiver In A Philhellenic Age, Suzanne Marchand

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Revisiting The Notion Of Vicarious Cause: Allure, Metaphor, And Realism In Object-Oriented Ontology, Jon Cogburn, Niki Young

Faculty Publications

We revisit the notion of vicarious causation in Graham Harman's Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) in order to first show that Harman has articulated two iterations of his account that are in tension with one another; one is found in his earlier paper "On Vicarious Causation,"while the other is contained in his later writings following the publication of Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything. This involves a critical assessment of his developing theory of metaphor in a way that encourages sympathetic revision in the service of improving his non-correlationist view of intra-objective relations.

The Incompatibility Of The Commons And The Public, Roy L. Heidelberg

Faculty Publications

In this essay I consider the conceptual conflict between the public as a modern political category and the idea of the commons. By linking the idea of the public to an early exposition that explicitly sought a distinction between the commons and the public, I show how the generalization inherent in the public contravenes the particularity of the commons. This poses important political problems for how a modern commons or a modern notion of the commons is conceived and also allows for a nuanced understanding of the political challenge posed against the commons itself.

The Aftermath Of The 2019 Pulwama Terror Attack–Religion, Nationalism And Exclusion In Online News Comment Sections, Nihar Sreepada, Ioana Coman

Faculty Publications

This study analyses the Indian and Pakistani publics reactions of the extensive coverage of the Pulwama terror attack, through an analysis of the online comments appearing at the end of the news stories covering the attack from the two leading English newspapers: Times of India (TOI) (India), and Dawn (D) (Pakistan). A qualitative content analysis is performed to compare and examine this dialogue emerging in the news comments sections. Findings are explored and discussed through conceptualizations of religion, nationalism, and a social psychological perspective towards exclusion of out-groups.

De Francisco Sales A Ilan Stavans: Apuntes Sobre Mediación Y Cultura En La Adaptación Y Traducción De Don Quijote En Los Estados Unidos De América, Carmela V. Mattza

Faculty Publications

This communication examines the translation and adaptation of Don Quixote in the United States, focusing on editions in Spanish, English, and Spanglish. It highlights Ilan Stavans’ two graphic novels (2018), analyzing them in relation to the annotated edition by Francisco Sales (1836), a professor at Harvard College at the time, recognized as the first Spanish edition of Don Quixote published in the United States.

Negotiating Quotidian Justice In The Science Classroom, Christopher Irwin, Joshua Ellis

Faculty Publications

In this conceptual paper, we explore how science teachers might enact social justice through their everyday science instruction. Drawing on empirical literature and our own K-12 teaching experience, we develop a heuristic for mapping classroom discourses to engage in action and reflection to change both the world of the classroom community, and the world beyond the school. We suggest how this heuristic can be used for justice-oriented science teaching independently of (or as a supplement to) any existing frameworks for science teaching to promote social justice. Our proposed model for social justice through disciplinary science teaching frames justice not as …

Mcmurdo Dry Valley Lake Edge 'Moats': The Ecological Intersection Between Terrestrial And Aquatic Polar Desert Habitats, Michael S. Stone, Shawn P. Devlin, Ian Hawes, Kathleen A. Welch, Michael N. Gooseff, Cristina Takacs-Vesbach, Rachael Morgan-Kiss, Byron J. Adams, J. E. Barrett, John C. Priscu, Peter T. Doran

Faculty Publications

Aquatic ecosystems - lakes, ponds and streams - are hotspots of biodiversity in the cold and arid environment of Continental Antarctica. Environmental change is expected to increasingly alter Antarctic aquatic ecosystems and modify the physical characteristics and interactions within the habitats that they support. Here, we describe physical and biological features of the peripheral 'moat' of a closed-basin Antarctic lake. These moats mediate connectivity amongst streams, lake and soils. We highlight the cyclical moat transition from a frozen winter state to an active open-water summer system, through refreeze as winter returns. Summer melting begins at the lakebed, initially creating an …

Summer-Wet Hydrologic Cycle During The Middle Miocene Of The United States: New Evidence From Fossil Fungi, Jennifer M.K. O’Keefe, Matthew J. Pound, Ingrid C. Romero, Noelia B. Nuñez Otaño, Martha E. Gibson, Jessica Mccoy, Margaret E. Alden, C. Jolene Fairchild, Julia Fitzpatrick, Emily Hodgson, Taylor Horsfall, Savannah Jones, June E. Lennex-Stone, Christopher A. Marsh, Alyssa A. Patel, Tyler M. Spears, Laikin Tarlton, Liberty F. Smallwood, O. L. Vanderespt, Jeremyah R. Cabrera, Cortland F. Eble, William C. Rember, James E. Starnes, Mac H. Alford, Alyson Brink, Sophie Warny

Faculty Publications

Hydrologic reconstructions from North America are largely unknown for the Middle Miocene. Examination of fungal palynomorph assemblages coupled with traditional plant-based palynology permits delineation of local, as opposed to regional, climate signals and provides a baseline for study of ancient fungas. Here, the Fungi in a Warmer World project presents paleoecology and paleoclimatology of 351 fungal morphotypes from 3 sites in the United States: the Clarkia Konservat-Lagerstätte site (Idaho), the Alum Bluff site (Florida), and the Bouie River site (Mississippi). Of these, 83 fungi are identified as extant taxa and 41 are newly reported from the Miocene. Combining new plant-based …

Migration And Erosion In Tidal And River Channels In Bangladesh, Katharine M. Donato, Leslie Valentine, Amanda Carrico, Carol A. Wilson, Kimberly G. Rogers, Timo Tonassi

Faculty Publications

Environmental stressors and natural disasters are changing the physical landscapes in many countries worldwide. In this paper, we ask whether and how erosion affects internal and international migration in Bangladesh. Building on prior studies, we use data from 3, 600 households in 18 research sites to investigate how erosion in tidal and river channels is related to the risk of making a first internal or international trip, net of extreme weather conditions and other relevant attributes. Findings reveal that the relationship between erosion and the likelihood of making a first domestic or international trip is moderated by livelihood type and …

Contribution Of Campaign Gnss Toward Parsing Subsidence Rates By Time And Depth In Coastal Bangladesh, Michael S. Steckler, Md Hasnat Jaman, Céline Jo Grall, Steven L. Goodbred, Carol A. Wilson, Bar Oryan

Faculty Publications

Coastal regions are vulnerable to rising seas, increasing storm magnitude, and decimation of ecologically-fragile areas. Deltas are particularly sensitive to the balance between sea-level rise, land subsidence and sedimentation that determine relative elevation. Bangladesh has been highlighted as being at risk from sea-level rise. Integrating measurements from different methods can approach a more complete understanding of factors controlling areally and temporally varying subsidence rates. To augment our compilation of rates from stratigraphic wells, historic buildings, vertical strainmeters, RSET-MH, and continuous Global Navigation Satellite System, we resurveyed 48 geodetic monuments in coastal Bangladesh ∼18 years after the monuments were installed. A …

Optimizing Privacy And Utility Tradeoffs For Group Interests Through Harmonization, Bishwas Mandal, George Amariucai, Shuangqing Wei

Faculty Publications

We propose a novel problem formulation to address the privacy-utility tradeoff, specifically when dealing with two distinct user groups characterized by unique sets of private and utility attributes. Unlike previous studies that primarily focus on scenarios where all users share identical private and utility attributes and often rely on auxiliary datasets or manual annotations, we introduce a collaborative data-sharing mechanism between two user groups through a trusted third party. This third party uses adversarial privacy techniques with our proposed data-sharing mechanism to internally sanitize data for both groups and eliminates the need for manual annotation or auxiliary datasets. Our methodology …

Initial Exploration Of Zero-Shot Privacy Utility Tradeoffs In Tabular Data Using Gpt-4, Bishwas Mandal, George Amariucai, Shuangqing Wei

Faculty Publications

We investigate the application of large language models (LLMs), specifically GPT-4, to scenarios involving the tradeoff between privacy and utility in tabular data. Our approach entails prompting GPT-4 by transforming tabular data points into textual format, followed by the inclusion of precise sanitization instructions in a zero-shot manner. The primary objective is to sanitize the tabular data in such a way that it hinders existing machine learning models from accurately inferring private features while allowing models to accurately infer utility-related attributes. We explore various sanitization instructions. Notably, we discover that this relatively simple approach yields performance comparable to more complex …

The Economics Of Privacy And Utility: Investment Strategies, Chandra Sharma, George Amariucai, Shuangqing Wei

Faculty Publications

The inevitable leakage of privacy as a result of unrestrained disclosure of personal information has motivated extensive research on robust privacy-preserving mechanisms. However, existing research is mostly limited to solving the problem in a static setting with disregard for the privacy leakage over time. Unfortunately, this treatment of privacy is insufficient in practical settings where users continuously disclose their personal information over time resulting in an accumulated leakage of the users' sensitive information. In this paper, we consider privacy leakage over a finite time horizon and investigate optimal strategies to maximize the utility of the disclosed data while limiting the …

Performance Optimization Of Software-Defined Industrial Internet-Of-Things (Sd-Iiot), Jehad Ali, Celestine Iwendi, Gaoyang Shan, Hsiao Chun Wu, Mohammed J.F. Alenazi, Zaid Bin Faheem, Cresantus N. Biamba

Faculty Publications

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) offers a centralized network management approach that can effectively address the complex and varied traffic demands characteristic of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) environments by decoupling the control plane from the data plane. The centralized control architecture of SDN necessitates the performance optimization of controllers to manage diverse traffic efficiently within IIoT applications. This paper explores the criteria for selecting controllers in SDN-enabled IIoT (SD-IIoT) environments, utilizing the Less Complex Analytic Network Process (LC-ANP) to establish their prioritization. A ranking system for SD-IIoT controllers is formulated using LC-ANP, and experimental validation of this method underscores its effectiveness …

Electrical Energy Harvesting By Connected Form Stable Phase Change Material Composites, Chengbin Yu, Guoqiang Li

Faculty Publications

Over the years, thermoelectric energy harvesting has been becoming a topic of intensive research and thermoelectric power generator has been utilized in various energy harvesting applications. However, a thermoelectric device is required to harvest energy, which has relatively low efficiency and high cost. To overcome such a common problem, the objective of this study is to generate electrical energy without using thermoelectric devices. To this end, an advanced energy harvester composed of two different phase change material composites was explored. It was hypothesized that based on the well-known Seebeck effect, stable electrical energy output would be feasible without a thermoelectric …

Subcooled Pool Boiling On Hierarchical Micro- And Nanostructure-Modified Copper Surfaces In Hfe-7100 Dielectric Liquid, Shayan Davani, Bin Zhang, Brendon Doran, Luke Hansen, Mohammad Khan, Mahdi Roodbari, Wen Jin Meng, Arden L. Moore

Faculty Publications

Hierarchical surfaces comprised both microscale and nanoscale structures have been previously studied as a means of targeting multiple length scales to achieve superior pool boiling performance. However, preceding studies have focused almost exclusively on high surface tension working fluids, while technologically important low surface tension fluids have remained largely unexplored. Due to their significantly lower surface tension these liquids tend to push out the air trapped in surface cavities of the heating surface, resulting in fewer nucleation sites compared to the same surface in water at low to moderate superheats. Thus, developing effective surface modification techniques for pool boiling in …