Digital Commons Network^™

Evaluation Of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material In Seafood From The Gulf Of Mexico, Charles Algeo Wilson Iv

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Radioactive disintegration of naturally occurring radioactive material was modeled with high precision and no assumptions to better understand serial decay in high order disequibrlia. This model helped develop a new method of quick analysis of NORM, where radioactivity can be measured with reasonable certainty before secular equilibrium is established. This approach was a significant improvement on previous similar approaches, halving time required for the same results and reduced wait time compared to classical approaches by 92%. Consequentially, NORM was measured in selected seafood samples from three areas in the Gulf of Mexico. Red Snapper, Red Drum, Northern Whiting, Spotted Trout …

Genetic Analysis Of Drought Tolerance In Rice (Oryza Sativa L.), Uttam Bhattarai

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Drought is a major challenge in rice production system worldwide. We conducted a phenotypic screening of the USA rice genotypes for drought tolerance and assessed genetic diversity using SSR markers. Identification of QTLs for drought tolerance during both vegetative and reproductive stage was done using genotyping by sequencing (GBS) based saturated SNP linkage map. The rice genotypes Jes, Leah, Roy J, Jazzman, and Madison were found to be drought tolerant. Population structure analysis grouped the USA rice genotypes into California, Louisiana, and Arkansas types. Marker-trait association showed that markers RM570 and RM351 were significantly associated with grain yield, spikelet fertility, …

The Griffin Facility For Decay-Spectroscopy Studies At Triumf-Isac, A. B. Garnsworthy, C. E. Svensson, M. Bowry, R. Dunlop, A. D. Maclean, B. Olaizola, J. K. Smith, F. A. Ali, C. Andreoiu, J. E. Ash, W. H. Ashfield, G. C. Ball, T. Ballast, C. Bartlett, Z. Beadle, P. C. Bender, N. Bernier, S. S. Bhattacharjee, H. Bidaman, V. Bildstein, D. Bishop, P. Boubel, R. Braid, D. Brennan, T. Bruhn, C. Burbadge, A. Cheeseman, A. Chester, R. Churchman, S. Ciccone, R. Caballero-Folch, D. S. Cross, S. Cruz

Faculty Publications

Gamma-Ray Infrastructure For Fundamental Investigations of Nuclei, GRIFFIN, is a new high-efficiency γ-ray spectrometer designed for use in decay spectroscopy experiments with low-energy radioactive ion beams provided by TRIUMF's Isotope Separator and Accelerator (ISAC-I) facility. GRIFFIN is composed of sixteen Compton-suppressed large-volume clover-type high-purity germanium (HPGe) γ-ray detectors combined with a suite of ancillary detection systems and coupled to a custom digital data acquisition system. The infrastructure and detectors of the spectrometer as well as the performance characteristics and the analysis techniques applied to the experimental data are described.

Realization Of A Type-Ii Nodal-Line Semimetal In Mg3bi2, Weiwei Xie

Faculty Publications

Nodal-line semimetals (NLSs) represent a new type of topological semimetallic phase beyond Weyl and Dirac semimetals in the sense that they host closed loops or open curves of band degeneracies in the Brillouin zone. Parallel to the classification of type-I and type-II Weyl semimetals, there are two types of NLSs. The type-I NLS phase has been proposed and realized in many compounds, whereas the exotic type-II NLS phase that strongly violates Lorentz symmetry has remained elusive. First-principles calculations show that Mg3Bi2 is a material candidate for the type-II NLS. The band crossing is close to the Fermi level and exhibits …

John Adams Composing Through Others: Modeling, Innovation, And Recomposition, Michael Edward Palmese

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

John Adams has frequently embedded allusions to the music of others in his work while also drawing on more general stylistic conventions and sensibilities of others to inform his creative output. Although this dynamic has been widely acknowledged in Adams’s body of work by scholars and critics generally, it has received little sustained attention or explanation. I argue that much of his work involves “composing through others,” a process in which he adopts, in various ways, the aesthetic conventions, styles, and sensibilities of other composers. By unearthing traces of this creative approach through a focus on short, but significant, periods …

Analyzing The Population Density Pattern In China With A Gis-Automated Regionalization Method: Hu Line Revisited, Cuiling Liu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The famous “Hu Line”, proposed by Hu Huanyong in 1935, divided China into two regions of comparable area sizes that drastically differ in population: about 4% in the northwest part and 96% in the southeast. However, the Hu Line was proposed largely by visual examination of hand-made maps and arduous experiments of numerous configurations, and has been subject to criticism of lack of scientific rigor and accuracy. Furthermore, it has been over eight decades since the Hu Line was proposed. During the time, China sustained several major man-made and natural disasters (e.g., the World War II, the subsequent Civil War …

Conductors' Annotated Scores: A Comprehensive Study, Leandro De Magalhaes Gazineo

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Conductors’ annotations have a different nature and goal from those of orchestral musicians.

The purpose of this study is to obtain a better understanding of the process of conductors’ annotations based on examined scores[1]collected from professional conductors and supported by a questionnaire answered by twenty-seven participants.

Certain questions provided a better understanding of the elements used in conductors’ annotations. For example: Why do some conductors prefer to use symbols, words, numbers, or colors? What kind of annotations are more suitable to specific repertories? Why are reinforcement markings, although redundant, so popular among conductors and why do some conductors …

Understanding Immune-Mediated Responses During The Pathogenesis Of Muco-Obstructive Airway Disease In Mice, Brandon Wayne Lewis

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of pulmonary ventilation is to supply oxygen for sustained aerobic respiration. However, a plethora of abiotic insults and airborne pathogens present in the environment are occasionally introduced into the airspaces during inhalation. Multiple layers of host defense, termed the mucociliary escalator, act in concert to eliminate unwanted constituents from the airspaces. Defects in the mucociliary escalator, as exhibited in cystic fibrosis (CF), compromise the mucociliary clearance (MCC) of inhaled pathogens, which favors microbial lung infection and progressive decreases in lung function. In CF, a mutation in the Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator (CFTR) gene results …

Persistent Hydrological Consequences Of Hurricane Maria In Puerto Rico, P. W. Miller, A. Kumar, T. L. Mote, F. D. S. Moraes, D. R. Mishra

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Microbial Mediated Sedimentary Phosphorus Mobilization In Emerging And Eroding Wetlands Of Coastal Louisiana, Kiran Upreti, Kanchan Maiti, Victor H. Rivera-Monroy

Faculty Publications

The interactions between the microbial reduction of Fe (III) oxides and sediment geochemistry are poorly understood and mostly unknown for the Louisiana deltaic plain. This study evaluates the potential of P mobilization for this region during bacterially mediated redox reactions. Samples were collected from two wetland habitats (forested wetland ridge, and marsh) characterized by variations in vegetation structure and elevation in the currently prograding Wax Lake Delta (WLD) and two habitats (wetland marsh, and benthic channel) in degrading Barataria Bay in Lake Cataouatche (BLC). Our results show that PO4 ³⁻ mobilization from WLD and BLC habitats were negligible under aerobic …

Improving Astrophysical Parameter Estimation Via Offline Noise Subtraction For Advanced Ligo, J. C. Driggers, S. Vitale, A. P. Lundgren, M. Evans, K. Kawabe, S. E. Dwyer, K. Izumi, R. M.S. Schofield, A. Effler, D. Sigg, P. Fritschel, M. Drago, A. Nitz, B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, C. Adams, R. X. Adhikari, V. B. Adya, A. Ananyeva, S. Appert, K. Arai, S. M. Aston, C. Austin, S. W. Ballmer, D. Barker, B. Barr, L. Barsotti, J. Bartlett, I. Bartos, J. C. Batch, A. S. Bell, J. Betzwieser

Faculty Publications

The Advanced LIGO detectors have recently completed their second observation run successfully. The run lasted for approximately 10 months and led to multiple new discoveries. The sensitivity to gravitational waves was partially limited by laser noise. Here, we utilize auxiliary sensors that witness these correlated noise sources, and use them for noise subtraction in the time domain data. This noise and line removal is particularly significant for the LIGO Hanford Observatory, where the improvement in sensitivity is greater than 20%. Consequently, we were also able to improve the astrophysical estimation for the location, masses, spins, and orbital parameters of the …

Constraining The P-Mode-G-Mode Tidal Instability With Gw170817, B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, F. Acernese, K. Ackley, C. Adams, T. Adams, P. Addesso, R. X. Adhikari, V. B. Adya, C. Affeldt, B. Agarwal, M. Agathos, K. Agatsuma, N. Aggarwal, O. D. Aguiar, L. Aiello, A. Ain, P. Ajith, B. Allen, G. Allen, A. Allocca, M. A. Aloy, P. A. Altin, A. Amato, A. Ananyeva, S. B. Anderson, W. G. Anderson, S. V. Angelova, S. Antier, S. Appert, K. Arai, M. C. Araya

Faculty Publications

We analyze the impact of a proposed tidal instability coupling p modes and g modes within neutron stars on GW170817. This nonresonant instability transfers energy from the orbit of the binary to internal modes of the stars, accelerating the gravitational-wave driven inspiral. We model the impact of this instability on the phasing of the gravitational wave signal using three parameters per star: An overall amplitude, a saturation frequency, and a spectral index. Incorporating these additional parameters, we compute the Bayes factor (lnB!pgpg) comparing our p-g model to a standard one. We find that the observed signal is consistent with waveform …

Multiple Mediation Analysis With Survival Outcomes: With An Application To Explore Racial Disparity In Breast Cancer Survival, Qingzhao Yu, Xiaocheng Wu, Bin Li, Richard A. Scribner

Faculty Publications

Mediation analysis allows the examination of effects of a third variable in the pathway between an exposure and an outcome. The general multiple mediation analysis method, proposed by Yu et al, improves traditional methods (eg, estimation of natural and controlled direct effects) to enable consideration of multiple mediators/confounders simultaneously and the use of linear and nonlinear predictive models for estimating mediation/confounding effects. In this paper, we extend the method for time-to-event outcomes and apply the method to explore the racial disparity in breast cancer survivals. Breast cancer is the most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death …

Facile Synthesis Of Mof-Derived Co@Conx/Bamboo-Like Carbon Tubes For Efficient Electrocatalytic Water Oxidation, Zhiqiang Xie, Ying Wang

Faculty Publications

The development of economical noble metal-free electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) with high catalytic activity and durability is crucial for the practical applications of many energy storage and conversion technologies. Here, we report a facile and economical synthesis of Co@CoNx/N-doped carbon tubes hybrid (Co@CoNx/NCT hybrid) via one-step pyrolysis of ZIF-67 at a low temperature of 650 °C with the introduction of urea, which functions as both nitrogen source and promoter of carbon tube growth. The resultant Co@CoNx/NCT hybrid exhibits bamboo-like structure with numerous active sites originated from abundant CoNx species, high nitrogen doping level and topological defects, rendering excellent …

An Emrb Multidrug Efflux Pump In Burkholderia Thailandensis With Unexpected Roles In Antibiotic Resistance, Afsana Sabrin, Brennan W. Gioe, Ashish Gupta, Anne Grove

Faculty Publications

© 2019 Sabrin et al. The antibiotic trimethoprim is frequently used to manage Burkholderia infections, and members of the resistance-nodulation-division (RND) family of efflux pumps have been implicated in multidrug resistance of this species complex. We show here that a member of the distinct Escherichia coli multidrug resistance B (EmrB) family is a primary exporter of trimethoprim in Burkholderia thailandensis, as evidenced by increased trimethoprim sensitivity after inactivation of emrB, the gene that encodes EmrB. We also found that the emrB gene is up-regulated following the addition of gentamicin and that this up-regulation is due to repression of the gene …

Hypoxic Volume Is More Responsive Than Hypoxic Area To Nutrient Load Reductions In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico - And It Matters To Fish And Fisheries, Donald Scavia, Dubravko Justić, Daniel R. Obenour, J. Kevin Craig, Lixia Wang

Faculty Publications

While impacts of low oxygen on marine organisms have been reviewed from physiological and ecological perspectives, relating broad population- and ecosystem-level effects to the areal extent of hypoxia (dissolved oxygen concentration below 64 μM, or 2 mg l ^-1 ) has proven difficult. We suggest that hypoxic volume is a more appropriate metric compared to hypoxic area because volume better integrates the effects of hypoxia on ecological processes relevant to many marine taxa. In this paper, we compare the volume-based load responses from a simple biophysical model with results from an independent three-dimensional hydrodynamic-biogeochemical model, and discuss the implications with …

Key Ne 19 States Identified Affecting Γ-Ray Emission From F 18 In Novae, M. R. Hall, D. W. Bardayan, T. Baugher, A. Lepailleur, S. D. Pain, A. Ratkiewicz, S. Ahn, J. M. Allen, J. T. Anderson, A. D. Ayangeakaa, J. C. Blackmon, S. Burcher, M. P. Carpenter, S. M. Cha, K. Y. Chae, K. A. Chipps, J. A. Cizewski, M. Febbraro, O. Hall, J. Hu, C. L. Jiang, K. L. Jones, E. J. Lee, P. D. O'Malley, S. Ota, B. C. Rasco, D. Santiago-Gonzalez, D. Seweryniak, H. Sims, K. Smith, W. P. Tan, P. Thompson, C. Thornsberry

Faculty Publications

Detection of nuclear-decay γ rays provides a sensitive thermometer of nova nucleosynthesis. The most intense γ-ray flux is thought to be annihilation radiation from the β+ decay of F18, which is destroyed prior to decay by the F18(p,α)O15 reaction. Estimates of F18 production had been uncertain, however, because key near-threshold levels in the compound nucleus, Ne19, had yet to be identified. We report the first measurement of the F19(He3,tγ)Ne19 reaction, in which the placement of two long-sought 3/2+ levels is suggested via triton-γ-γ coincidences. The precise determination of their resonance energies reduces the upper limit of the rate by a …

Bayesian Analysis And Prediction Of Hybrid Performance, Filipe Couto Alves, Ítalo Stefanine Correa Granato, Giovanni Galli, Danilo Hottis Lyra, Roberto Fritsche-Neto, Gustavo De Los Campos

Faculty Publications

Background: The selection of hybrids is an essential step in maize breeding. However, evaluating a large number of hybrids in field trials can be extremely costly. However, genomic models can be used to predict the expected performance of un-tested genotypes. Bayesian models offer a very flexible framework for hybrid prediction. The Bayesian methodology can be used with parametric and semi-parametric assumptions for additive and non-additive effects. Furthermore, samples from the posterior distribution of Bayesian models can be used to estimate the variance due to general and specific combining abilities even in cases where additive and non-additive effects are not mutually …

Surface Coupling Of Octaethylporphyrin With Silicon Tetrachloride, Phillip C. Chambers, Neepa M.K. Kuruppu Arachchige, Ashley M. Taylor, Jayne C. Garno

Faculty Publications

© 2019 American Chemical Society. The surface assembly of 2,3,7,8,12,13,17,18-octaethylporphyrin (OEP) using silicon tetrachloride as a coupling agent was investigated using atomic force microscopy (AFM). Nanopatterned films of Si-OEP were prepared by protocols of colloidal lithography to evaluate the morphology, thickness, and molecular orientation for samples prepared on Si(111). The natural self-stacking of porphyrins can pose a challenge for molecular patterning. When making films on surfaces, porphyrins will self-associate to form co-planar configurations of random stacks of molecules. There is a tendency for the flat molecules to orient spontaneously in a side-on arrangement that is mediated by physisorption to the …

An Intersectional Analysis Of Black Working-Class Women Becoming Members Of The Academy, Tifanie W. Pulley

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In a society based on race, gender and class, Black working-class women are some of the most economically marginalized invisible people in American society. However, some of these women have managed to escape economic marginalization and rise to the highest academic levels. Black working-class women becoming members of the academy is a curious phenomenon, given that the traditional American faculty profile is populated largely by white males from middle class backgrounds. Being Black, ­­working-class and female brings together a complex process of identity construction, class-consciousness, and status negotiation. For one, they were not raised in families that have traditional economic, …

Characterization, Source Apportionment And Health Analysis Of Air Pollutants In India, Hao Guo

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In recent years, severe pollution events occurred frequently in India, which are of significant concern of the public. However, limited studies have been conducted to understand the formation, sources and health effects of high pollution levels and the information for design of effective control strategies is urgently needed. First, criteria air pollutants data at 10 sites for 2017 in Delhi were analyzed to understand the current pollution status. The results show that annual fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) concentrations exceeded the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), India of 60 µg/m³ at all sites. Source-oriented versions of the …

In Situ Geochemistry Of Middle Ordovician Dolomites Of The Upper Mississippi Valley, Achim D. Herrmann

Faculty Publications

The dolomitization and diagenetic history of Ordovician carbonates of southern Wisconsin is complex. Previous studies attributed dolomitization to various diagenetic factors and environments. In this study, high-resolution, in situ laser ablation inductively coupled mass spectrometry analysis of rare earth element patterns of dolomite was used to assess the diagenetic fluids responsible for dolomitization of the Ordovician Decorah Formation. Integrated geochemical data and petrographic evidence suggest that the dolostones are formed in two different diagenetic realms: shallow burial and hydrothermal. Shallow burial dolomites exhibit three distinct rare earth element patterns. Dolomite from the middle portion of the Guttenberg Member exhibits light …

When Can Competition And Dispersal Lead To Checkerboard Distributions?, Tad Dallas, Brett A. Melbourne, Alan Hastings

Faculty Publications

© 2018 The Authors. Journal of Animal Ecology © 2018 British Ecological Society Checkerboard distributions—mutually exclusive species co-occurrences—are a common observation in community ecology and biogeography. While the underlying causes of checkerboard distributions have remained elusive, a long-standing argument is that they are representative of strong competitive interactions and/or dispersal limitation. We explore this using a stochastic two-patch metacommunity model combined with an experimental two-patch system of competing Tribolium species, quantifying checkerboard distributions using the abundance-based index A st . We find that maintenance of checkerboard distributions is possible in a limited parameter space consisting of low dispersal rates, low …

Landscape Of Gene Transposition-Duplication Within The Brassicaceae Family, Dong Ha Oh, Maheshi Dassanayake

Faculty Publications

© The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Kazusa DNA Research Institute. We developed the CLfinder-OrthNet pipeline that detects co-linearity among multiple closely related genomes, finds orthologous gene groups, and encodes the evolutionary history of each orthologue group into a representative network (OrthNet). Using a search based on network topology, we identified 1,394 OrthNets that included gene transposition-duplication (tr-d) events, out of 17,432 identified in six Brassicaceae genomes. Occurrences of tr-d shared by subsets of Brassicaceae genomes mirrored the divergence times between the genomes and their repeat contents. The majority of tr-d events resulted in truncated …

Surface Coupling Of Octaethylporphyrin With Silicon Tetrachloride, Jayne C. Garno, Phillip C. Chambers, Neepa M. K. Kuruppu Arachchige, Ashley M. Taylor

Faculty Publications

The surface assembly of 2,3,7,8,12,13,17,18-octaethylporphyrin (OEP) using silicon tetrachloride as a coupling agent was investigated using atomic force microscopy (AFM). Nanopatterned films of Si-OEP were prepared by protocols of colloidal lithography to evaluate the morphology, thickness, and molecular orientation for samples prepared on Si(111). The natural self-stacking of porphyrins can pose a challenge for molecular patterning. When making films on surfaces, porphyrins will self-associate to form co-planar configurations of random stacks of molecules. There is a tendency for the flat molecules to orient spontaneously in a side-on arrangement that is mediated by physisorption to the substrate as well as by …

Vegetation Phenology And Nest Survival: Diagnosing Heterogeneous Effects Through Time, Kevin M. Ringelman

Faculty Publications

bias; duck; grassland; mallard; prairie; Robel; waterfowl; WATERFOWL PRODUCTION; HABITAT SELECTION; ARTIFICIAL NESTS; MOTTLED DUCKS; WINTER-WHEAT; SUCCESS; NORTH; PREDATION; CONCEALMENT; FIELDS

Deepdrug3d: Classification Of Ligand-Binding Pockets In Proteins With A Convolutional Neural Network, Michal Brylinski, Limeng Pu, Rajiv Gandhi Govindaraj, Jeffrey Mitchell Lemoine

Faculty Publications

Comprehensive characterization of ligand-binding sites is invaluable to infer molecular functions of hypothetical proteins, trace evolutionary relationships between proteins, engineer enzymes to achieve a desired substrate specificity, and develop drugs with improved selectivity profiles. These research efforts pose significant challenges owing to the fact that similar pockets are commonly observed across different folds, leading to the high degree of promiscuity of ligand-protein interactions at the system-level. On that account, novel algorithms to accurately classify binding sites are needed. Deep learning is attracting a significant attention due to its successful applications in a wide range of disciplines. In this communication, we …

Evaluating The Impact Of Employing Local Tax Collectors To Improve State-Level Licensing Program Outcomes In Florida, Sergio Alvarez, Maria Bampasidou, Daniel Solís

Faculty Publications

© The Author(s) 2019. The improvement of public services is an important public policy objective, and several approaches have been proposed and implemented across all levels of government to achieve this goal. A recent policy in Florida (FL) fosters collaboration between local and state governments by allowing local tax collector (TC) offices to receive and support applications for the state’s concealed weapons (CW) license program. We use 80,020 application records to estimate process improvements brought about by this policy. Our analysis shows that by using TCs, the time for the application to be processed was one third the time it …

Inward Rectifier Potassium (Kir) Channels Mediate Salivary Gland Function And Blood Feeding In The Lone Star Tick, Amblyomma Americanum, Zhilin Li, Kevin R. Macaluso, Lane D. Foil, Daniel R. Swale

Faculty Publications

© 2019 Li et al. Background Tick feeding causes extreme morbidity and mortality to humans through transmission of pathogens and causes severe economic losses to the agricultural industry by reducing livestock yield. Salivary gland secretions are essential for tick feeding and thus, reducing or preventing saliva secretions into the vertebrate host is likely to reduce feeding and hinder pathogen life cycles. Unfortunately, the membrane physiology of tick salivary glands is underexplored and this gap in knowledge limits the development of novel therapeutics for inducing cessation of tick feeding. Methodology We studied the influence of inward rectifier potassium (Kir) channel subtypes …

Factors Affecting Growth Kinetics And Spontaneous Metastasis In The B16f10 Syngeneic Murine Melanoma Model, Natalie Fowlkes, Kelli Clemons, Paul Jf Rider, Ramesh Subramanian, Nobuko Wakamatsu, Ingeborg Langohr, Konstantin G. Kousoulas

Faculty Publications

Melanoma is an immunogenic tumor that can metastasize quickly to proximal and distal sites, thus complicating the application of therapeutic modalities. Numerous mouse model systems have been used to gain understanding of the immunobiology and metastatic potential of melanoma. Here, we report the optimization of a syngeneic mouse melanoma model protocol using the mouse B16-derived melanoma cell line B16F10 that ensures the production of tumors on mice pinnae that are similar in size between animals and that enlarge in a time-dependent manner. In this model, B16F10 cells are first allowed to develop tumors after injection in the interscapular area or …