Digital Commons Network^™

Computer-Aided Drug Design Of Bakuchiol-Inspired Lxrα Modulators Against Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Dillon P. Cao

LSU Master's Theses

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common type of cancer in children, accounting for approximately 25% of pediatric malignancies. Although glucocorticoids are commonly used to treat ALL, prolonged use can lead to steroid resistance, rendering the drug regimen ineffective. Therefore, alternative treatment avenues are needed for high- risk pediatric patients that do not respond well to traditional regimens.

Liver X Receptor α (LXRα) is presented as a potential alternative drug target for pediatric patients that exhibit suboptimal response to glucocorticoids. Limitations of the current LXRα modulators such as indiscriminate isoform selectivity between LXRα and LXRβ and consequent adverse effects …

Ecology Of Viruses In Marine And Coastal Oxygen-Depleted Waters, Sophie Jurgensen

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Deoxygenation of marine and coastal waters, both caused and exacerbated by a suite of abiotic and biotic factors, has been documented for more than sixty years. The incidence and severity of low-oxygen areas is predicted to expand globally in the coming decades. Despite their colloquial moniker “dead zones,” low-oxygen areas contain thriving and diverse microorganisms that have significant impacts on global biogeochemical cycles including contributing to positive feedback loops that further expand low-oxygen areas. While the diversity and activity of these microorganisms is beginning to be elucidated, the ecology of their viruses is particularly understudied. In this dissertation, I present …

Synthesis Of An Acinetobacter Baumannii Lipooligosaccharide Subunit, James M. Armstrong Ii

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Acinetobacter baumannii is a Gram-negative, multi drug-resistant bacterium that was placed on the World Health Organization’s watchlist of drug-resistant bacteria. A. baumannii is an ESKAPE pathogen, one of six increasingly antimicrobial-resistant bacteria that are responsible for nosocomial infections. Alternative therapies, such as vaccines, are required to decrease the world’s reliance on antimicrobial agents. Specifically, glycoconjugate vaccines such as those used against Haemophilus influenzae B, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Neisseria meningitidis are used globally and are highly effective. These vaccines consist of an antigenic bacterial glycan bound to a carrier protein. The glycan is usually a capsular polysaccharide (CPS), however, the notion …

The Coralhydro2k Database: A Global, Actively Curated Compilation Of Coral Δ18o And Sr/Ca Proxy Records Of Tropical Ocean Hydrology And Temperature For The Common Era, Rachel M. Walter, Hussein R. Sayani, Thomas Felis, Kim M. Cobb, Nerilie J. Abram, Ariella K. Arzey, Alyssa R. Atwood, Logan D. Brenner, Émilie P. Dassié, Kristine L. Delong, Bethany Ellis, Julien Emile-Geay, Matthew J. Fischer, Nathalie F. Goodkin, Jessica A. Hargreaves, K. Halimeda Kilbourne, Hedwig Krawczyk, Nicholas P. Mckay, Andrea L. Moore, Sujata A. Murty, Maria Rosabelle Ong, Riovie D. Ramos, Emma V. Reed, Dhrubajyoti Samanta, Sara C. Sanchez, Jens Zinke

Faculty Publications

The response of the hydrological cycle to anthropogenic climate change, especially across the tropical oceans, remains poorly understood due to the scarcity of long instrumental temperature and hydrological records. Massive shallow-water corals are ideally suited to reconstructing past oceanic variability as they are widely distributed across the tropics, rapidly deposit calcium carbonate skeletons that continuously record ambient environmental conditions, and can be sampled at monthly to annual resolution. Climate reconstructions based on corals primarily use the stable oxygen isotope composition (δ18O), which acts as a proxy for sea surface temperature (SST), and the oxygen isotope composition of seawater (δ18Osw), a …

Coral Reproduction In The Equatorial Eastern Pacific: Reproductive Trends And Seasonal Parameters, Susan Beth Colley

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Most equatorial eastern Pacific (EEP) corals can reproduce year-round (Glynn et al. 1991, 1994, 1996, 2000, 2008, 2011, 2012, Colley et al. 2000). Gamete development occurs in several cycles throughout the year with a variable number of maturation cycles and presumably spawning events. The length of the breeding seasons in these corals is species-specific and can be locale-specific. The long-term reproductive dataset of these prior studies was utilized for Diaseris distorta, Pavona gigantea and Psammocora stellata (Colley et al. 2000, Glynn et al. 1996, 2012). Gametogenic trends are investigated in association with seasonal change of several environmental variables in …

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

LSU Master's Theses

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

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

Roleplaying Games And Performance, Benjamin Joseph Munise

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

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

Reducing Recycling Contamination Using An Information Nudge, Mimi Rivette

LSU Master's Theses

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

My Promise To Nature., Kathleen Mcvea

LSU Master's Theses

My Promise to Nature is a body of work created to emphasize the importance of conserving natural habitats in Louisiana’s Tunica Hills. The decision to do Land Art and select the Tunica Hills as the subject did not come to me right away. Nature and family have been woven throughout my work throughout my time in the M.F.A. program.

This was not out of reach, and I was already extremely passionate about the subject. It might be a pain due to location, but my family owned 400 acres of property in the Tunica Hills with a cabin that they had …

Remote Sensing And Artificial Intelligence-Based Modeling And Prediction Of Harmful Algal Blooms In Lake Pontchartrain, Ian Smith

LSU Master's Theses

Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) and particularly toxic cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (CyanoHABs) have become a growing threat to the environment, economy, communities, and human and animal health. This is particularly true for Lake Pontchartrain. Forecasting the occurrence of cyanobacterial HABs in Lake Pontchartrain is a process that currently does not exist, as nowcasting by the NCCOS Algal Bloom Monitoring System or the similar system implemented by the U.S. EPA is currently the only method to monitor HAB production in the Lake. This thesis made this process possible by identifying antecedent environmental conditions controlling CyanoHABs, describing the conditions using NASA satellite …

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

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

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

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

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

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

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

Learning–Assisted Constraint Filtering To Enhance Power System Optimization Performance, Fouad Hasan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Machine learning (ML) is a powerful tool that provides meaningful insights for operators to make fast and efficient decisions by analyzing data from power systems. ML techniques have great potential to assist in solving optimization problems within a shorter time frame and with less computational burden. AC optimal power flow (ACOPF), dynamic economic dispatch (D-ED), and security-constrained unit commitment (SCUC) are the three energy management optimization functions studied in this dissertation. ACOPF is solved every 5~15 minutes. Because of the nonconvex and complex nature of ACOPF, solving this problem for large systems is computationally expensive and time-consuming. Classification and regression …

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

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

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

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

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

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

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

Exploring Machine Learning In Deep Foundation And Soil Classification Application, Mohammad Moontakim Shoaib

LSU Master's Theses

The applicability of several Machine Learning (ML) models was explored in this research to predict the ultimate capacity and load-settlement behavior of axially loaded single-driven piles from Cone Penetration Test (CPT) data. Additionally, a common CPT-based soil behavior type (SBT) classification system was reproduced using those ML models. Eighty static pile load tests and corresponding CPT data close to those pile locations were collected from 34 sites in Louisiana for the deep foundation application. On the other hand, 70 CPT soundings were taken in 14 different parishes across Louisiana for the soil classification application. Specifically, tree-based ML models such as …

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

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

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

Foreign State Images And Popular Foreign Policy Constraints, Cana Kim

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

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

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

Measuring Food Literacy Among Limited-Resourced Adults, Emelia Clement

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

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

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

Active Transportation, Context, And Community Participation: Engaged Citizens And Destination-Based Walking And Biking, Jessica Stroope

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Active transportation is associated with many benefits, including improved health outcomes, higher commuting satisfaction, lower pollution, reduced traffic, and social capital. One understudied area of research on active transportation and social capital is the relationship between active transportation and community participation. Although prior work has established a connection, little is known about the contexts in which this relationship may occur, or about how active transportation may affect the relationship between a context and community participation.

The purpose of Chapter 3 is to examine how active transportation may mediate the relationship between perceptions of place and community participation. Significant work has …

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

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

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

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

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

LSU Master's Theses

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

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

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

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

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

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

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

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Atmospheric Impacts From The 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Charles Philip Johnson

LSU Master's Theses

Although the ecological devastations induced by an oil spill are well studied, the hydrometeorological impacts from a long-term slick have gone unnoticed. The ocean-surface alterations stemming from the lasting oil footprint increase solar radiation absorption which in turn alters the surface pressure and moisture gradients and wind speeds thereby influencing precipitation surrounding the oil spill. Revealing the potential impacts from these could better aid in the safety of crews cleaning spills and provide a better understanding of how humans alter the landscape. This thesis examines the changes in local hydrometeorology brought on by the 2010 summer Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil …

Alcea, Autumn Johnson

LSU Master's Theses

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

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

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

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

Uniqueness Of Relaxation Times Determined By Dielectric Spectroscopy, Mengchun Wu, Karin J. Bichler, Bruno Jakobi, Gerald J. Schneider

Faculty Publications

Dielectric spectroscopy is extremely powerful to study molecular dynamics, because of the very broad frequency range. Often multiple processes superimpose resulting in spectra that expand over several orders of magnitude, with some of the contributions partially hidden. For illustration, we selected two examples, (i) normal mode of high molar mass polymers partially hidden by conductivity and polarization and (ii) contour length fluctuations partially hidden by reptation using the well-studied polyisoprene melts as example. The intuitive approach to describe experimental spectra and to extract relaxation times is the addition of two or more model functions. Here, we use the empirical Havriliak-Negami …

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

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

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

Development Of Cost-Effective Restriping Strategies For Thermoplastic Pavement Markings Used In Hot And Humid Climate, Elise Mansour

LSU Master's Theses

Because of the limited highway state budget, most transportation agencies restripe their thermoplastic pavement markings based on a fixed schedule or based on visual inspection. However, these restriping strategies might be questionable in terms of efficiency and cost. Some studies have developed degradation models to predict the retroreflectivity of thermoplastic markings based on key variables. Yet, most of the developed models had low prediction accuracy (R² as low as 0.1) and sometimes was not reported, which placed little confidence in their use. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the field performance and develop cost-effective restriping strategies …