Digital Commons Network^™

Estimating The Future Frequency Of Bonnet Carré Spillway Openings, Kayla Thomas

LSU Master's Theses

In the 2010s, the Bonnet Carré Spillway (BCS) in southeastern Louisiana, U.S.A., experienced an unprecedented uptick in openings to mitigate the possibility of flooding, including a record double-opening in 2019. Both the environmental consequences of BCS openings associated with nutrients that run from the Mississippi River into Lake Pontchartrain and the synoptic-scale meteorological conditions that necessitate these openings are poorly understood. With the unexpectedly frequent openings in recent years and the ever-present threat of climate change, it is vital to consider the future shift of synoptic-scale climate patterns and how it can relate to BCS openings. Understanding the potential for …

Memory-Augmented Llm Agent For Predicting Locomotion Modes In Construction Activities, Ehsan Ahmadi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The construction industry faces significant challenges, including labor shortages, high physical demands, and safety risks, necessitating advanced assistive technologies like exoskeletons to enhance worker efficiency and reduce injuries. However, effective exoskeleton control in dynamic construction environments requires accurate locomotion prediction, a task complicated by the diversity of activities and reliance on supervised learning methods that struggle to generalize. This study investigates a multimodal approach to locomotion prediction, leveraging speech commands and visual data from smart glasses to enable adaptive and safe human-exoskeleton interaction. The research unfolds in two stages: the first develops a framework to evaluate the zero-shot capability and …

Integration Of Hydrological Simulations Into The Design Process To Assess The Performance Of Green Infrastructure Designs, Clara Jimenez

Design Research

With the growing threat of flooding in coastal and inland communities, it is necessary to migrate nature-based solutions such as green infrastructure. However, one of the challenges that designers face with this strategy lies in the design phase where it is difficult to quantify the performance with traditional design tools. Thus, there is an incentive to incorporate hydrological models within GIS to aid designers in quantifying performance. The goal of this research is to demonstrate that hydrological simulations can be used as a design tool for designers–such as landscape architects & architects– to analyze the feasibility of green infrastructure designs …

Road Rage Or Road Cage: A Study Of The Ecological Impacts Of Roads On Wildlife Corridors And The Resultant Habitat Fragmentation, Addie Bagot

Design Research

As global road networks continue to expand, the resulting habitat fragmentation poses a significant threat to wildlife populations and ecological connectivity. In the United States, wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVCs) account for approximately 10 million animal deaths and 40,000 human fatalities annually, with incidents increasing by 50% over the past 15 years. This research investigates the ecological impacts of transportation infrastructure through a case study of Interstate 10 in Louisiana, specifically a 15-mile segment between Sorrento and LaPlace that cuts through the Maurepas Swamp Wildlife Management Area. This forested wetland, home to a rich diversity of species including the American alligator, has …

Reef Fish Movement And Community Assemblages Associated With A Newly Deployed Artificial Reef, Jade M. Carver, Brett J. Falterman, Stephen R. Midway, Christian Walker, Creed C. Branham, Michael A. Dance

Faculty Publications

Artificial reefs provide critical habitat for fish in areas lacking benthic structure, yet our understanding of how artificial reefs function and develop is limited. Here, changes in fish community assemblages were monitored using baited remote underwater video (BRUV) surveys before and after a new artificial reef was deployed in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Movement of red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus) and gray snapper (Lutjanus griseus) between nearby oil and gas platforms (n = 3) and the new artificial reef was examined using acoustic telemetry, and residency was calculated for fish associated with both structure types. Fish community development at the …

Evaluation Of Novel Jointless Engineered Cementitious Composite Ultrathin Whitetopping (Ecc-Utw) Overlay, Hassan Noorvand, Marwa Hassan, Tyson Rupnow, Ricardo Hungria

Publications

The present work corresponds to the development and the application of a cost-effective Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) mix design with the name M3-1.5%. Once the material was developed it was applied in the construction of a novel engineered cementitious composites ultrathin whitetopping (ECC-UTW) overlay. The overlay was constructed in May 2019 at the Pavement Research Facility (PRF) in Port Allen, Louisiana. The project was built on top of a distressed asphalt pavement corresponding to a previous project. During the construction, samples were gathered and subjected to testing after 28 days through means of compressive, uniaxial tension and flexural strength tests. …

Advanced Manufacturing Of Multifunctional Shape Memory Polymer Composites And Self-Healing Systems, John B. Konlan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The need for multifunctional light weight structures for engineering applications is on the rise. Multifunctional composites are desired because of their ability to combine multiple functionalities into one structure. The advantages of a high strength-to-weight ratio of multifunctional composites make them desirable and suitable for use in energy-efficient applications. Shape-memory polymers (SMPs) have attracted interest over the past several decades because of their multifunctional nature. They have found use in many applications such as aerospace, satellites, automobiles, textiles, and biomedical devices, where lightweight and multifunctionality are key. The self-healing nature of most SMPs makes them suitable for use in lightweight …

Unveiling The Interfacial Reconstruction Mechanism Enabling Stable Growth Of The Delafossite Pdcoo2 On Al2o3 And Laalo3, Anna Scheid, Tobias Heil, Y. Eren Suyolcu, Qi Song, Niklas Enderlein, Arnaud P. Nono Tchiomo, Prosper Ngabonziza, Philipp Hansmann, Darrell G. Schlom, Peter A. Van Aken

Faculty Publications

Delafossites, composed of noble metal (A⁺) and strongly correlated sublayers (BO2^-), form natural superlattices with highly anisotropic properties. These properties hold significant promise for various applications, but their exploitation hinges on the successful growth of high-quality thin films on suitable substrates. Unfortunately, the unique lattice geometry of delafossites presents a significant challenge to thin-film fabrication. Different delafossites grow differently, even when deposited on the same substrate, ranging from successful epitaxy to complete growth suppression. These variations often lack a clear correlation to obvious causes like lattice mismatch. Unidentified stabilization mechanisms appear to enable growth in certain …

Advancing Aerial Survey Techniques For Non-Breeding Waterfowl Populations: A Comprehensive Review And Application In Northeastern Louisiana, Victoria L. Drake

LSU Master's Theses

Aerial surveys play a crucial role in monitoring North America's waterfowl populations and habitat conditions, and consistency across geographies and years allows biologists to track trends through time. The goal of this project was to redesign the northeastern portion of the Louisiana wintering waterfowl survey to align with statistically robust transect surveys conducted in neighboring states within the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. To identify the optimal sampling method, we evaluated three transect weighting schemes: stratified random (unweighted), stratified by watershed, and stratified by expert opinion. Approximately 10% of the total sampling area was randomly selected for each survey period, adhering to …

Multiparticle Quantum Plasmonics: Fundamentals And Applications, Mingyuan Hong

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Quantum plasmonics explores the interaction between light and collective charge oscillations at metal-dielectric interfaces, enabling strong light confinement and enhanced quantum effects at the nanoscale. While traditional quantum optics has primarily focused on single-photon systems, an intermediate regime exists between classical and single-photon optics - multiparticle (or multiphoton) quantum optics. In this regime, classical light sources, when analyzed through techniques such as photon-number-resolving (PNR) detection and projective measurement, can reveal nontrivial quantum correlations. This thesis investigates how multiparticle quantum plasmonics harnesses these correlations to control quantum statistical properties, enhance coherence, and enable novel applications in quantum technologies.

In this thesis, …

Decadal To Millennial-Scale Morphodynamic Evolution Of Microtidal Marshes, Samuel Mason Zapp

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Tidal marshes are susceptible to rapidly converting to open water due to their low elevations within the tidal frame. A continuous supply of externally supplied mineral sediment and in situ organic material production is necessary to offset elevation losses from relative sea level rise and erosion. Complex feedbacks between hydrodynamics, the erosion, transport, and deposition of sediment, and physical modification of the landscape by the establishment of intertidal vegetation govern the spatial and temporal patterns of elevation response. This dissertation focuses on modeling how these dynamics drive marsh landscape evolution in the past, present, and into the future under changing …

Ligo Detector Characterization In The First Half Of The Fourth Observing Run, S. Soni, B. K. Berger, D. Davis, F. Di Renzo, A. Effler, T. A. Ferreira, J. Glanzer, E. Goetz, G. González, A. Helmling-Cornell, B. Hughey, R. Huxford, B. Mannix, G. Mo, D. Nandi, A. Neunzert, S. Nichols, K. Pham, A. I. Renzini, R. M.S. Schofield, A. Stuver, M. Trevor, S. Álvarez-López, R. Beda, C. P.L. Berry, S. Bhuiyan, L. Blagg, R. Bruntz, S. Callos, M. Chan, P. Charlton, N. Christensen, G. Connolly

Faculty Publications

Progress in gravitational-wave (GW) astronomy depends upon having sensitive detectors with good data quality. Since the end of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory-Virgo-KAGRA third Observing run in March 2020, detector-characterization efforts have lead to increased sensitivity of the detectors, swifter validation of GW candidates and improved tools used for data-quality products. In this article, we discuss these efforts in detail and their impact on our ability to detect and study GWs. These include the multiple instrumental investigations that led to reduction in transient noise, along with the work to improve software tools used to examine the detectors data-quality. We end …

Disentanglement In Representation Learning: Interpretability In Dimension Reduction With Vae, Minh Hong Vu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This research explores both theoretical and practical aspects of disentangled representation learning by extending the VAE framework. We address the core challenge of extracting independent generative factors from observed data while preserving high reconstruction fidelity. To this end, we propose two novel VAE variants: (i) the $\lambda\beta$-VAE, which incorporates an additional $\ell^2$-norm reconstruction loss to improve accuracy, and (ii) the $\gamma\beta$-VAE, which introduces a mutual information regularization term to encourage independence across latent dimensions.

Our theoretical analysis is conducted in a linear Gaussian setting, where we derive optimal solutions for these VAE-based models. We further examine how varying levels of …

Ai-Based Accessibility Widget (Aibaw) Shortcomings For Blind Web Users, Joshua A. Rovira

LSU Master's Theses

With legal, ethical, and financial motivations to make their websites more accessible, many businesses and sites have begun to employ the use of artificial intelligence (AI) based widgets to automatically make necessary modifications to their sites' pages and subdomains. In this work, we conduct a qualitative case study to determine the efficacy of these AI tools as they pertain specifically to blind users. We analyze pages from twelve websites using accessiBe's AI accessibility widget and provide a taxonomy of their violations against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 level AA compliance. We found each website to bear numerous violations …

Iiscan: Detection And Analysis Of Iis Native Modules In Volatile Memory, Brennen D. Calato

LSU Master's Theses

The Internet Information Services (IIS) is a Microsoft-developed web server designed with a modular architecture to foster extensibility. Its worker process loads all IIS modules when the server receives a request, and native modules operate with the same level of access as the worker process. The built-in persistence and resource access make malicious modules powerful tools post-compromise. This thesis focuses on identifying all native modules in the system by analyzing volatile memory. Through binary analysis of the worker process, we identify critical data structures containing information about system modules. We developed two Volatility plugins to assist in detecting these modules …

Wind-Resilient Solar: Harnessing Cfd For Enhanced Load Estimation, Aly Mousaad Aly

Faculty Publications

Solar panels are a cornerstone of renewable energy infrastructure, playing a pivotal role in global sustainability efforts. To ensure their resilience and long-term viability, accurate wind load estimations are essential for designing supporting structures, which account for nearly 50% of their total cost. However, traditional building codes lack comprehensive guidance for solar panels, resulting in inconsistent estimations due to discrepancies in scaled wall-bounded wind tunnel testing methodologies. These inaccuracies pose safety risks, increase costs, and hinder adoption. Emerging technologies like computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations offer a promising alternative by enabling full-scale analysis under realistic conditions of complete turbulence. This …

Advancing Solar Farm Resilience: Cfd-Driven Wind Load Optimization, Aly Mousaad Aly

Faculty Publications

This study investigates wind load design methods for ground-mounted solar panels and arrays by comparing Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations with design standards. A case study of a solar farm impacted by Hurricane Maria examines the effects of elevation height, tilt angle, and variations in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) standards on wind loads and structural failure. Turbulence models, including Reynolds Stress Model, k–ε Model, and Large Eddy Simulation (LES), are used to analyze wind pressures, lift, drag, and peak pressures. Results show Phase 1 experienced higher wind loads than Phase 2 due to design differences. A cost-benefit …

The Impact Of Visual Stimuli And The Properties Of Green Walls On Human Well-Being In Built And Immersive Virtual Environments, Alireza Sedghikhanshir

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The built environment significantly influences human well-being, particularly in the context of stress recovery and cognitive restoration. This dissertation investigates the impact of visual stimuli, particularly green walls, on human responses related to stress, restoration, and thermal comfort. The research is guided by three primary objectives: (1) examining the role of visual stimuli and their properties in promoting stress recovery and restoration, (2) evaluating the potential of Immersive Virtual Environments (IVEs) as tools for delivering and studying restorative environments, and (3) investigating the influence of green walls on indoor environmental conditions.

A series of experimental studies were carried out to …

Optimizing Llm X86 Assembly Code Comprehension Through Fine-Tuning, Darrin Michael Lea

LSU Master's Theses

Reverse engineering is a cybersecurity process that focuses on understanding the underlying functionality of software or malware. This is an arduous process that demands large amounts of time and effort from cybersecurity practitioners. Large Language Models (LLMs) offer a potential solution to this problem. LLMs have worked their way into various fields of cybersecurity in recent years, including incident response and malware classification. However, LLMs have historically struggled with low-level code comprehension: a necessary part of reverse engineering. While LLMs can generate code and explain its function on the surface level, they struggle to grasp the wider context. In this …

Privacy At Scale: A Study Of Mobile App Privacy Practices, Katherine Perez

LSU Master's Theses

What is privacy in a world where people are more connected than ever? Due to the Internet and its rapid advancement, the way information is shared and accessed has fundamentally changed. Millions of people interact with social networks, websites, and applications daily—and with each interaction, some data is collected from the user. In many cases, users cannot access a website or application without first accepting the service’s Privacy Policy. However, these policies often obscure the details of how a consumer’s data is handled, burying important information under dense legal language. In response to growing concerns about transparency, some platforms have …

Modeling And Simulation Of Methane And Co2 Hydrates In Porous Media, Chico Sambo

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents a comprehensive study on modeling and simulation for
methane hydrate production and CO2 sequestration. The research focuses on pore-
scale and reservoir-scale modeling techniques to understand the dynamics of gas
hydrate dissociation, the associated risks of subsidence, and the potential for CO2
storage in deep-sea environments.
This dissertation begins with an investigation into pore-scale modeling. Specif-
ically, a detailed pore network model was developed to simulate the processes of
methane hydrate dissociation and formation. However, the numerical simulations
revealed that assuming an isothermal process for hydrate formation and dissociation
is not physically realistic. Consequently, the results obtained …

“When Black Women Whisper”: An Exploration Of Why Black Women Stay In K-12 Education, Chelsea Lynne Murry

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Abstract

From low retention rates to race and gender biases to being overworked and undervalued in the classroom, Black women leave education at higher rates than any other demographic. This study highlighted the experiences of Black women in K-12 education settings, the role of support systems in their retention and advancement, and why they stay in K-12 education. The study used Counter-storytelling in Critical Race Theory, Black Feminist Thought, and Womanism to examine the race and gender inequities that Black women face and to highlight their lived experiences. Through the use of Sista Circles/focus groups and one-on-one interviews, the research …

Scholarship Through Service: Exploring City Year Partnerships With Land-Grant Universities, Clarence Sutton Iii

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences of graduate students at land-grant universities who have successfully navigated and completed the City Year scholars program. I utilized interviews with scholars as well as stakeholders to better understand the experiences of the scholars and the factors of the program that impacted their decision to apply and be retained at the institution until completion. This study also explored how these partnerships are developed and maintained. Through understanding the scholar experience this study explored the mechanics of the program and its effectiveness in terms of scholars’ career goals. This dissertation study …

Innovative Design Methodology For Durable Open-Graded Friction Course Asphalt Mixtures, Anas Abualia

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Open-graded friction course (OGFC) is a thin asphalt mixture surface layer with a high percentage of coarse aggregates and high interconnected air voids, which provides improved skid resistance, visibility, and decreased pavement-tire noise. However, construction personnel at DOTD reported that conventional OGFC mixtures have short service life (raveling distress). Further, their structural contribution to the pavement structure is commonly neglected and designed only for functionality purposes.

The objective of this study was to develop a rational mix design methodology to improve the durability of OGFC asphalt mixtures. Specific objectives are to: (1) conduct a rheological and chemical characterization of polymer-, …

Redefining Actor Training: Prioritizing Mental Health And Ethical Pedagogy In Higher Education Actor Training Programs, Dori R. Leeman

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In recent years, higher education personnel across the country have referred to the pervasiveness of mental health challenges on college campuses as an epidemic. Students majoring in theatre and performance are no exception. This dissertation examines the unique factors of actor training programs and their impact on student actors’ mental health and well-being. Many traditional actor training programs have long upheld the notion that great artistry requires personal sacrifices, which include a lack of work-life balance and, at times, practices that blur the boundaries between life and art. I argue that actor training programs have failed to evolve alongside current …

Optimizing Fisher Information In Quantum Technology, Bran Purvis

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Fisher information is a statistical metric whose inverse represents a lower bound on the variance of an unbiased estimator. Naturally, in order to make the best estimates of a given unknown parameter, one would desire to find ways to minimize the value of this lower bound. Thus, the Fisher information can also be used to compare the quality of different estimators for a given parameter: whichever estimator has a lower value for its Fisher information must also provide better estimates. The same holds true in the framework of quantum information theory, where an analog to the Fisher information, dubbed quantum …

Gaussian Quantum Markov Semigroups In The Fock-Anti-Fock Representation Of Weyl Algebra, A Dhahri, Franco Fagnola, D Poletti, Hyun Jae Yoo

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

A Skill Assessment Framework For The Fisheries And Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project, Nina Rynne, Camilla Novaglio, Julia Blanchard, Daniele Bianchi, Villy Christensen, Marta Coll, Jerome Guiet, Jeroen Steenbeek, Andrea Bryndum-Buchholz, Tyler D. Eddy, Cheryl Harrison, Olivier Maury, Kelly Ortega-Cisneros, Colleen M. Petrik, Derek P. Tittensor, Ryan F. Heneghan

Faculty Publications

Understanding climate change impacts on global marine ecosystems and fisheries requires complex marine ecosystem models, forced by global climate projections, that can robustly detect and project changes. The Fisheries and Marine Ecosystems Model Intercomparison Project (FishMIP) uses an ensemble modeling approach to fill this crucial gap. Yet FishMIP does not have a standardised skill assessment framework to quantify the ability of member models to reproduce past observations and to guide model improvement. In this study, we apply a comprehensive model skill assessment framework to a subset of global FishMIP models that produce historical fisheries catches. We consider a suite of …

Astaxanthin Protects Against Environmentally Persistent Free Radical-Induced Oxidative Stress In Well-Differentiated Respiratory Epithelium, Ayaho Yamamoto, Peter D. Sly, Lavrent Khachatryan, Nelufa Begum, Abrey J. Yeo, Paul D. Robinson, Stephania A. Cormier, Emmanuelle Fantino

Division of Basic Science Faculty Publications

Environmentally persistent free radicals (EPFRs) are combustion products present in substantial numbers on atmospheric particulate matter with half-lives of days to years. The mechanisms linking EPFR exposure and respiratory diseases are unclear, but likely involve oxidative stress. We investigated the mechanisms by which EPFR exposure impact on well-differentiated primary human nasal epithelial cells from subjects sensitive or resistant to oxidant stressors, cultured at an air-liquid interface. We found that EPFR exposure induced mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (mtROS) production; increased mitochondrial DNA copy number; down-regulated mucus production gene, Mucin-5AC (MUC5AC); up-regulated detoxifying gene, cytochrome P450 1A1 (CYP1A1), nuclear factor erythroid 2-related …

Exact Inference For Transformed Large-Scale Varying Coefficient Models With Applications, Tianyu Chen, Robert Habans, Thomas Douthat, Jenna Losh, Lida Chalangar Jalili Dehkharghani, Li Hsiang Lin

Faculty Publications

Studying migration patterns driven by extreme environmental events is crucial for building a sustainable society and stable economy. Motivated by a real dataset about human migrations, this paper develops a transformed varying coefficient model for origin and destination (OD) regression to elucidate the complex associations of migration patterns with spatio-temporal dependencies and socioeconomic factors. Existing studies often overlook the dynamic effects of these factors in OD regression. Furthermore, with the increasing ease of collecting OD data, the scale of current OD regression data is typically large, necessitating the development of methods for efficiently fitting large-scale migration data. We address the …