Weak Thermal State Quadrature-Noise Shadow Imaging, Pratik J. Barge, Ziqi Niu, Savannah L. Cuozzo, Eugeniy E. Mikhailov, Irina Novikova, Hwang Lee, Lior Cohen

Faculty Publications

In this work, we theoretically and experimentally demonstrate the possibility to create an image of an opaque object using a few-photon thermal optical field. We utilize the quadrature-noise shadow imaging (QSI) technique that detects the changes in the quadrature-noise statistics of the probe beam after its interaction with an object. We show that such a thermal QSI scheme has an advantage over the classical differential imaging when the effect of dark counts is considered. At the same time, the easy availability of thermal sources for any wavelength makes the method practical for broad range of applications, not accessible with, e.g., …

Alteration Of Biomolecular Conformation By Aluminum-Implications For Protein Misfolding Disease, Yuhai Zhao, Aileen I. Pogue, Peter N. Alexandrov, Leslie G. Butler, Wenhong Li, Vivian R. Jaber, Walter J. Lukiw

Faculty Publications

The natural element aluminum possesses a number of unique biochemical and biophysical properties that make this highly neurotoxic species deleterious towards the structural integrity, conformation, reactivity and stability of several important biomolecules. These include aluminum’s (i) small ionic size and highly electrophilic nature, having the highest charge density of any metallic cation with a Z²/r of 18 (ionic charge +3, radius 0.5 nm); (ii) inclination to form extremely stable electrostatic bonds with a tendency towards covalency; (iii) ability to interact irreversibly and/or significantly slow down the exchange-rates of complex aluminum–biomolecular interactions; (iv) extremely dense electropositive charge with one …

A Machine Learning Framework For Detecting Covid-19 Infection Using Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering, Eloghosa Ikponmwoba, Okezzi Ukorigho, Parikshit Moitra, Dipanjan Pan, Manas Ranjan Gartia, Opeoluwa Owoyele

Faculty Publications

In this study, we explored machine learning approaches for predictive diagnosis using surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), applied to the detection of COVID-19 infection in biological samples. To do this, we utilized SERS data collected from 20 patients at the University of Maryland Baltimore School of Medicine. As a preprocessing step, the positive-negative labels are obtained using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) testing. First, we compared the performance of linear and nonlinear dimensionality techniques for projecting the high-dimensional Raman spectra to a low-dimensional space where a smaller number of variables defines each sample. The appropriate number of reduced features used was obtained …

Bio-Inspired Geotechnical Engineering: Principles, Current Work, Opportunities And Challenges, Alejandro Martinez, Jason Dejong, Idil Akin, Ali Aleali, Chloe Arson, Jared Atkinson, Paola Bandini, Tugce Baser, Rodrigo Borela, Ross Boulanger, Matthew Burrall, Yuyan Chen, Clint Collins, Douglas Cortes, Sheng Dai, Theodore Dejong, Emanuela Del Dottore, Kelly Dorgan, Richard Fragaszy, J. David Frost, Robert Full, Majid Ghayoomi, Daniel I. Goldman, Nicholas Gravish, Ivan L. Guzman, James Hambleton, Elliot Hawkes, Michael Helms, David Hu, Lin Huang, Sichuan Huang, Christopher Hunt, Duncan Irschick

Faculty Publications

A broad diversity of biological organisms and systems interact with soil in ways that facilitate their growth and survival. These interactions are made possible by strategies that enable organisms to accomplish functions that can be analogous to those required in geotechnical engineering systems. Examples include anchorage in soft and weak ground, penetration into hard and stiff subsurface materials and movement in loose sand. Since the biological strategies have been 'vetted' by the process of natural selection, and the functions they accomplish are governed by the same physical laws in both the natural and engineered environments, they represent a unique source …

Detrimental Changes In Health During Menopause: The Role Of Physical Activity, Ryan M. Hulteen, Kara L. Marlatt, Timothy D. Allerton, Dragana Lovre

Clinical Research Faculty Publications

Midlife women experience changes in cardiometabolic, physical, and psychosocial health during menopause that negatively impacts their overall quality of life. Factors that contribute to these increases in cardiometabolic risk include weight gain as well as increases in fat mass (particularly abdominal adiposity), insulin resistance, and vascular dysfunction. Other deleterious changes in physical health (e. g. reduced sleep health, bone density, and balance) as well as changes in psychosocial health (e. g. mood, anxiety, and depression) often coincide and are linked to these increases in cardiometabolic risk. Physical activity and exercise are important lifestyle components that have been demonstrated to improve …

Qualifying Factors That Predict Weight Loss Success Within Diet Interventions, Jordan Losavio

LSU Master's Theses

Evidence-based diet strategies lead to weight loss for some, while for others, the same diet approach could result in trivial weight loss or even in weight gain. This prompts the underlying research question: what factors predict that a given diet strategy will be efficacious for some, but not for others? This research was a secondary analysis of clinical weight loss studies to determine which factors influence an individual’s weight loss success for three diet intervention strategies: low-carbohydrate, low-fat, and low-calorie. A combination of physiological, psychological, behavioral, and dietary factors was evaluated for each diet study. Multiple linear regression and logistic …

Electric Field Driven Co-Assembly And Transport Of Colloids Using Active-Passive Interaction, Brishty Deb Choudhury

LSU Master's Theses

Over the past few decades, the out-of-equilibrium transport and assembly of colloidal particles have been drawing significant interest due to their myriad applications in biology, engineering, and physics. In the absence of any external force, micro and nanoparticles perform Brownian motion in dispersion and are termed as passive colloids. In contrast, active colloids are a class of particles where a net imbalance of fluid flow around their surface drives their net migration in space when subjected to an external electric field. While several studies have shown the ability to program the dynamics of active colloids using an external electric field, …

Defining Toxicological Endpoints Of Aphis Gossypii Feeding, Flinn O'Hara

LSU Master's Theses

The cotton aphid, Aphis gossypii Glover (Hemiptera: Aphididae), is a destructive agricultural pest, due to photosynthate removal and plant virus transmission. This project consisted of two main goals. First, we employed toxicity bioassays and electrical penetration graph (EPG) methodology to quantify changes to feeding behavior and toxicity of A. gossypii after exposure to commercialized aphicides. Commercialized aphicides containing flupyradifurone, sulfoxaflor, thiamethoxam, thiamethoxam + lambda cyhalothrin, and bifenthrin induced > 90% aphid mortality within 4 hours of exposure. This was supported by our EPG results that showed a significant reduction in the proportion of aphids that continued to probe on cotton 4 …

Exercise Effects On Cognition In Older African Americans: A Pilot Randomized Trial, Kathryn L. Gwizdala, Robert Brouillete, Robbie Beyl, William Johnson, Callie Hebert, Leah Carter, Melissa Harris, Robert L. Newton, Owen T. Carmichael

Clinical Research Faculty Publications

Introduction: Regular physical activity lowers risk for cognitive decline and neurodegenerative disorders. Older African Americans (AAs) have been underrepresented in trials that increased physical activity to improve cognitive outcomes. Methods: 56 sedentary, older, cognitively healthy AAs (avg. 69.2 ± 3.4 yrs. old) were randomized in 1:1 ratio into either a 12-week successful aging group (SAG) or a 12-week physical activity group (PAG). Participants in SAG attended weekly 60-min educational sessions in which healthy aging topics were discussed. Participants in PAG attended supervised physical activity sessions twice per week at local YMCAs (90–120 min/week) and were prescribed 2–3 days per week …

Effect Of Ultraviolet Light Treatment On Microbiological Safety And Quality Of Fresh Produce: An Overview, Veerachandra Yemmireddy, Achyut Adhikari, Juan Moreira

Faculty Publications

Fresh and fresh-cut fruits and vegetables have been associated in several foodborne illness outbreaks. Although investigations from those outbreaks reported that the contamination with pathogenic microorganisms may occur at any point in the farm to fork continuum, effective control strategies are still being widely investigated. In that direction, the concept of hurdle technology involving a sequence of different interventions have been widely explored. Among those interventions, ultraviolet (UV) light alone or in combination with other treatments such as use of organic acids or sanitizer solutions, has found to be a promising approach to maintain the microbiological safety and quality of …

Completing Single-Cell Dna Methylome Profiles Via Transfer Learning Together With Kl-Divergence, Sanjeeva Dodlapati, Zongliang Jiang, Jiangwen Sun

Faculty Publications

The high level of sparsity in methylome profiles obtained using whole-genome bisulfite sequencing in the case of low biological material amount limits its value in the study of systems in which large samples are difficult to assemble, such as mammalian preimplantation embryonic development. The recently developed computational methods for addressing the sparsity by imputing missing have their limits when the required minimum data coverage or profiles of the same tissue in other modalities are not available. In this study, we explored the use of transfer learning together with Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence to train predictive models for completing methylome profiles with …

Novel Synthetic Routes To Functionalized Tetrahydrobenzofurans And Chiral A-Quaternary A'-Hydroxy Ketones, Fatimat Oluwayemisi Badmus

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Various naturally occurring organic compounds possess unique biological activities and have found exclusive applications in pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. Their undeniable significance has necessitated the discovery and development of novel reactions that unveil advanced chemical transformations. This dissertation will detail our new approaches towards the synthesis of functionalized tetrahydrobenzofurans and chiral α-quaternary α’-hydroxy ketones. The transformations in these approaches were enabled by the chemistries of oxyallyl cations, Grignard reaction and Claisen rearrangement.

Chapter 1 introduces oxyallyl cations, their generation, reactions and applications. Our previous contributions, in the form of silyloxyallyl cations, to solve the regioselective issues associated with unsymmetrical oxyallyl cations …

Graph-Based Computational Approach To The Study Of Cancer Pharmacotherapy, Manali Singha

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Recent advances in the analysis of omics data from various cancer cells pave the way for cancer therapy to predict effective drug responses and drug-target interactions based on cell- specific genetic features such as gene expression profiles, mutations, and copy number variations. Because the phenotype of a complex disease, such as cancer, is determined by several factors, it is difficult to predict the best effective treatment for a certain cell line based just on one sort of data, such as genetic traits and drug molecular features. The overall studies in this thesis proposed a graph-based representation of heterogeneous biological data …

Wetland Soil Development Along Salinity And Hydrogeomorphic Gradients In Active And Inactive Deltaic Basins Of Coastal Louisiana, Amanda Fontenot

LSU Master's Theses

Coastal wetlands provide an abundance of ecosystem services that benefit society, such as essential habitat for commercial species, storm protection, nutrient cycling, and carbon storage. Louisiana faces rapid rates of relative sea level rise (natural subsidence and eustatic sea levels) that threaten wetland survival, which are amplified by a reduction of riverine sediment input. An important determining factor of marsh survival is the formation of wetland platform elevation, known as vertical accretion, which is determined by several processes including sediment deposition & erosion, below ground biomass (BGB) productivity, decomposition of organic matter, shallow & deep subsidence, and soil compaction. Feldspar …

The Link Between Intracellular Calcium Signaling And The Nitric Oxide-Dependent Release Of Chloride In Retinal Amacrine Cells, Li Zhong

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Regulation of cytosolic Cl^- is an important determinant in synaptic function. Our lab has discovered that cytosolic Cl^- is regulated not only by transport across the plasma membrane but that Cl^- can also be released from internal Cl^- stores (Hoffpauir et al., 2006) in amacrine cells (ACs). Nitric oxide (NO) is a small molecule neurotransmitter that has been demonstrated to be involved in cytosolic Ca²⁺ elevations and Cl^- regulation via activation of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator (CFTR) (Krishnan et al., 2017). Here, I test the hypothesis that intracellular Ca²⁺ signaling mediates the …

Gis Automated Delineation And Analysis Of Cancer Service Areas In The United States, Changzhen Wang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Delineating a meaningful and reliable geographic unit pertaining to cancer care is essential in examining geographic variations in cancer care for better analysis, management, and planning. Public health researchers have devoted great efforts to defining various service areas, which; however, lack scientific rigor or are unrepresentative of the highly specialized cancer care markets, and their methods have become obsolete in the era of big data and high geo-computation. This study develops the “Spatially Constrained Leiden (ScLeiden)” method, a network community detection algorithm in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and applies it to delineate a series of coherent cancer service …

Development Of A Non-Dairy Yogurt Alternative Using High Protein Brown And White Rice Flour, Anita Morris

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

There is a great demand for plant-based yogurt alternatives (YAs) due to societal prevalence of milk sensitivities and allergies as well as some consumers abstaining from animal-derived products. Producing YAs from rice flour has considerable potential because (1) rice is not a major food allergen, (2) using rice flour is more economical compared to plant milks, the main ingredient in commercially available YAs, and (3) there are no rice-based yogurt alternatives in today’s marketplace. The overall goals of this study were to develop probiotic YAs from brown and white rice flours, and to evaluate their storage stability, probiotic’s survival in …

Genetic Dissection And Qtl Pyramiding To Enhance Salinity Tolerance In Rice (Oryza Sativa L.), Sandeep Chapagain

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Salinity is emerging as a major threat to rice production worldwide due to climate change and anthropogenic sources. We performed three different population development approaches using exotic salt tolerant donors in US rice backgrounds to identify the salt tolerant QTLs/genes and tolerant breeding lines. First approach involved development of a biparental introgression lines (ILs) population by utilizing a salinity tolerant donor ‘TCCP’ in an elite rice cultivar ‘Cheniere’ background and mapping of QTLs at germination, seedling, and reproductive stages A total of seven QTLs for five germination traits, 16 QTLs for seven seedling stage traits, and 30 QTLs for ten …

Determining The 3d Structure And Dynamics Of Mouse Notch1 Epidermal Growth Factor-Like Repeat 26 Using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy, Kendra D. Jenkins

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

NOTCH is a transmembrane protein that transmits signals between cells in direct contact and alters gene expression. The signaling pathway is important because it is involved in cell fate determination. The NOTCH1 extracellular domain has 36 epidermal growth factor-like (EGF) repeats that are responsible for ligand binding. Mutations in the EGF-like repeats cause various neurological and developmental disorders. NOTCH1 signaling initiates when DSL ligands bind to EGF11-12, the minimum Ligand Binding Domain (LBD). The Abruptex region of the NOTCH1 protein (EGF24-29) is a highly glycosylated, flexible region with calcium binding sites that regulates NOTCH1 signaling and binding by interacting with …

Identifying The Components Of A Hemp (Cannabis Sativa L.) (Rosales: Cannabaceae) Integrated Pest Management Program In Louisiana, Nathan C. Arey

LSU Master's Theses

Hemp, Cannabis sativa (L.) (Rosales: Cannabaceae), is defined as a plant in the genus Cannabis with a delta-9 3 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) concentration of not more than 0.3% on a dry weight basis. Domestic acreage of this crop has increased in response to the ratification of the Agricultural Act of 2014 and the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018. In 2021, 21,915 hectares of hemp were planted in the United States with a production value of $712 million. There is a current lack of literature on insect related research in this reemerging crop system in the state of Louisiana. Therefore, this present …

Consequences Of Gulf Of Mexico Estuarine Tropical Cyclone Disturbance Regimes For Fish Assemblage Dynamics Conditionally Depend On Life-History Traits And Niche Characteristics, Stephen Edward Potts

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Tropical cyclones (TC) are intense, localized disturbances that can potentially cause extensive damage to ecosystems. This dissertation is motivated by a need for interdisciplinary study of TC-ecosystem dynamics with applications to ecology, geography, and analytical methodology. I explore concept linkages between TC dynamics and ecosystems to characterize TC-ecosystem relationships as ecological disturbance regimes. This dissertation tests hypotheses and relationships of TC effects on estuarine fish assemblages in the north-western Gulf of Mexico. I explore concepts in TC-ecosystem relationships to link biotic dynamics with physical disturbance.

In Chapter 2, I compared spatial performance of generalized linear models (GLMs) and generalized additive …

Bioremediation Of Petroleum-Based Contaminants By Alkane-Degrading Bacterium Alcanivorax Borkumensis, Amber Julaine Pete

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The world’s dependence on petroleum hydrocarbons has led to significant environmental implications. For example, oil spills cause lasting environmental damage, and the increase of plastics in the marine environment has been growing, specifically, microplastics that can be difficult to detect due to their small size. Petroleum hydrocarbons occur naturally in nearly all marine environments, which has allowed hundreds of microorganisms to evolve to utilize these hydrocarbons as their primary energy source. These microbes are classified as hydrocarbonoclastic and are utilized to remove spilled oil biodegradation. Over the last ten years, progress has been made in the biodegradation of oil spills …

Developmental Competence Of Oocytes Derived From Seasonally Anovulatory Mares Treated With Estradiol And Sulpiride, Michelle O. Vetter

LSU Master's Theses

Over the course of two years (2021-2022), two experiments were conducted during the nonbreeding seasons to evaluate the in vitro developmental potential of oocytes derived from seasonally anovulatory mares treated with ECP-sulpiride. The objective of experiments 1 and 2 were to compare pooled recovery and maturation rates of oocytes from mares treated with estradiol cypionate (ECP) and sulpiride with oocytes collected from naturally transitional mares (controls). Cleavage rates of oocytes subjected to intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) were compared only in experiment 2. In experiments 1 and 2, a total of 36 light horse and pony-cross anovulatory mares were used. Treatment …

Evolution Of Freshwater Fishes In The Northern Neotropics, Diego Elias

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The northern Neotropics (NN) represents one of the most geologically-complex regions on the planet, composed of island-like geological blocks that have undergone multiple episodes of isolation and connectivity at various geological times. The riverscapes of the NN harbor a unique assemblage of freshwater fishes. In contrast to the freshwaters systems of South America, which are dominated by ostariophysan lineages, the aquatic systems of the NN are dominated by lineages of two families: Cichlidae (cichlids) and Poeciliidae (livebearers). It has been suggested that the geologically complex nature of the region allowed ancestors of cichlids and livebearers to colonize and radiate within …

Baseline Differences In Driving Frequency As A Predictor Of Cognitive Decline, Luke R. Miller

LSU Master's Theses

Driving is a complex task heavily dependent on cognitive functions which can decline with age including executive functions and processing speed. Although driving cessation as a predictor of cognitive changes has been studied, driving frequency is understudied in the literature. Thus, the objective of the current study is to evaluate the predictive utility of driving frequency at baseline toward objective cognitive decline beyond other factors associated with cognitive decline (e.g., depression, general functional mobility). The sample included a subset of 1,426 older adults (M age = 77.6, SD = 7.1) from the Rush University Memory and Aging Project. Participants completed …

Electrochemical Reduction Of Hexavalent Chromium On Glassy Carbon Electrodes In Acidic Buffers, Callie M. Stern

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

As fresh water systems become endangered due the expansion of growth and human civilization, it is important to find effective water purification strategies. A common water contaminant that is mostly generated through industrial processes is hexavalent chromium. The two stable forms of chromium found in aqueous systems are hexavalent chromium, Cr(VI), and trivalent chromium, Cr(III). Considered an essential nutrient, Cr(III) is non-toxic to humans. Cr(VI) on the other hand, is toxic at low concentrations and can be ingested through drinking contaminated water. There is no standard limit to the amount of Cr(VI) that can be in drinking water and most …

Development And Validation Of A Measure For Social Support: Perceived Social Support Inventory, Lindsay Marie Clark

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Abstract

The literature consistently acknowledges the protective function of social support against various negative psychological and physiological outcomes (Cohen & Wills, 1985; Dunst et al., 1986; Taylor, 2011; Uchino, 2009). Further, social support can emerge from different members that comprise an individual’s social network, such as friends, family, teachers, colleagues, and members of common interest groups. Given the important role that social support plays in health outcomes, the importance of psychometrically sound measures for assessing the construct is essential for use in research and clinical settings. However, many of the current measures of social support are outdated, are limited in …

Taxonomic Studies Of Cardiochilinae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) Focused On Specific Genera From Both The Old World And The New World, Ilgoo Kang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Taxonomy is a fundamental scientific study in biology, which defines, classifies, and names biological organisms. Braconidae Latreille, 1829 (Hymenoptera) is a megadiverse insect family in need of continuing taxonomic research. Among 45 braconid subfamilies, Cardiochilinae Ashmead, 1900 has had little attention by braconid taxonomists during the previous twenty years. In this dissertation, seven cardiochiline genera, Bohayella Belokobylskij, 1987, Heteropteron Brullé, 1846, Neocardiochiles Szépligeti, 1908, Orientocardiochiles Kang & Long, 2020, Retusigaster Dangerfield, Austin, & Whitfield, 1999, Schoenlandella Cameron, 1905 and Wesmaelella Spinola, 1851 are taxonomically reviewed and investigated. Orientocardiochiles was described as a new genus, the first new genus in the …

Understanding The Horse Fly Species And Species Relations Of The Tabanus Nigrovittatus Complex Along Coastal Louisiana, Darrius M. Davis

LSU Master's Theses

The Dipteran family Tabanidae is among the most diverse families of insects that is comprised of approximately 144 genera with 4455 described species (Pape et al. 2011). Members of the family Tabanidae have been studied for well over 100 years in Louisiana. Hine (1906, 1907) conducted the first surveys of the members of the tabanid family and noted the presence of 14 species. Jones and Bradley (1923) supplemented Hine’s observations with their own inventory of horse flies across four parishes and found an additional 14 species that were not recorded by Hine. Subsequently, Tidwell (1970, 1973) conducted a survey of …

Soil Moisture Mediated Behavioral And Physiological Alterations Of Coptotermes Formosanus And Reticulitermes Flavipes (Blattodea: Rhinotermitidae), Steven J. Richardson

LSU Master's Theses

Substrate moisture is a critical environmental factor for the survival and behavior of subterranean termites (Blattodea: Rhinotermitidae). The invasive Formosan subterranean termite (Coptotermes formosanus) and the native eastern subterranean termite (Reticulitermes flavipes) co-occur in the southeastern United States, but C. formosanus is predominant in subtropical and R. flavipes is more common in temperate regions. The difference in their geographic distributions is largely attributed to their different behavioral and physiological ecology. While ample research has been done on foraging behavior of the two species, there was no empirical evidence for the effects of constant soil moisture on …