Digital Commons Network^™

Amortized Entanglement Of A Quantum Channel And Approximately Teleportationsimulable Channels, Eneet Kaur, Mark M. Wilde

Faculty Publications

This paper defines the amortized entanglement of a quantum channel as the largest difference in entanglement between the output and the input of the channel, where entanglement is quantified by an arbitrary entanglement measure. We prove that the amortized entanglement of a channel obeys several desirable properties, and we also consider special cases such as the amortized relative entropy of entanglement and the amortized Rains relative entropy. These latter quantities are shown to be single-letter upper bounds on the secret-key-agreement and PPT-assisted quantum capacities of a quantum channel, respectively. Of especial interest is a uniform continuity bound for these latter …

Identifying Genome-Wide Immune Gene Variation Underlying Infectious Disease In Wildlife Populations - A Next Generation Sequencing Approach In The Gopher Tortoise, Jean P. Elbers, Mary B. Brown, Sabrina S. Taylor

Faculty Publications

Background: Infectious disease is the single greatest threat to taxa such as amphibians (chytrid fungus), bats (white nose syndrome), Tasmanian devils (devil facial tumor disease), and black-footed ferrets (canine distemper virus, plague). Although understanding the genetic basis to disease susceptibility is important for the long-term persistence of these groups, most research has been limited to major-histocompatibility and Toll-like receptor genes. To better understand the genetic basis of infectious disease susceptibility in a species of conservation concern, we sequenced all known/predicted immune response genes (i.e., the immunomes) in 16 Florida gopher tortoises, Gopherus polyphemus. All tortoises produced antibodies against Mycoplasma agassizii …

Radiation-Pressure-Mediated Control Of An Optomechanical Cavity, Jonathan Cripe, Nancy Aggarwal, Robinjeet Singh, Robert Lanza, Adam Libson, Min Jet Yap, Garrett D. Cole, David E. Mcclelland, Nergis Mavalvala, Thomas Corbitt

Faculty Publications

We describe and demonstrate a method to control a detuned movable-mirror Fabry-Pérot cavity using radiation pressure in the presence of a strong optical spring. At frequencies below the optical spring resonance, self-locking of the cavity is achieved intrinsically by the optomechanical (OM) interaction between the cavity field and the movable end mirror. The OM interaction results in a high rigidity and reduced susceptibility of the mirror to external forces. However, due to a finite delay time in the cavity, this enhanced rigidity is accompanied by an antidamping force, which destabilizes the cavity. The cavity is stabilized by applying external feedback …

Bounded Backstepping Through A Dynamic Extension With Delay, Frederic Mazenc, Michael Malisoff, Laurent Burlion, Victor Gibert

Faculty Publications

We provide a bounded backstepping result that ensures global asymptotic convergence for a broad class of partially linear systems with an arbitrarily large number of integrators. We use one artificial delay, and we assume that the nonlinear subsystems satisfy a converging-input-converging-state assumption. When the nonlinear subsystem is control affine with the state of the first integrator as the control, we provide sufficient conditions for our converging-input-converging-state assumption to hold. Our example illustrates the novelty and utility of our main result.

Sequential Predictors Under Time-Varying Delays: Effects Of Delayed State Observations In Dynamic Controller, Jerome Weston, Michael Malisoff, Frederic Mazenc

Faculty Publications

In a 2016 IEEE Conference on Decision and Control paper, our team designed sequential predictors for time-varying linear systems with time-varying delays, to prove global exponential stabilization properties using a feedback control that is computed in terms of the state of the last sequential predictor. This allowed feedback delays of arbitrarily large sup norm in the original system. Here we provide a significant generalization to more challenging cases with arbitrarily large feedback delay bounds, and where, in addition, current values of the plant state are not available to use in the sequential predictors. We illustrate our work in a pendulum …

A Case Study: The Attitudes Of A Teaching Assistant Of French Toward Instructional Technology, Farida Emelia Ngandu Tshiebue

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Technology has shaped the personal experiences of Teaching Assistants (TAs) of French at the collegiate level in the United States (US), what they feel about the technology tools that are accessible in their work environment, and how they use these tools in their practice of teaching. Yet, there is limited research on the specific topic of the attitudes of TAs of French toward the instructional technologies that are available to them. This study sought to investigate the attitudes of a singular TA of French at a southern US university toward instructional technology (IT) by exploring the dynamics of IT use …

Image-Based Modeling Of Flow Through Porous Media: Development Of Multiscale Techniques For The Pore Level, Timothy Wayne Thibodeaux

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Increasingly, imaging technology allows porous media problems to be modeled at microscopic and sub-microscopic levels with finer resolution. However, the physical domain size required to be representative of the media prohibits comprehensive micro-scale simulation. A hybrid or multiscale approach is necessary to overcome this challenge. In this work, a technique was developed for determining the characteristic scales of porous materials, and a multiscale modeling methodology was developed to better understand the interaction/dependence of phenomena occurring at different microscopic scales. The multiscale method couples microscopic simulations at the pore and sub-pore scales. Network modeling is a common pore-scale technique which employs …

Phase Control Of Attosecond Pulses In A Train, Chen Guo, Anne Harth, Stefanos Carlström, Yu Chen Cheng, Sara Mikaelsson, Erik Marsell, Christoph Heyl, Miguel Miranda, Mathieu Gisselbrecht, Mette B. Gaarde, Kenneth J. Schafer, Anders Mikkelsen, Johan Mauritsson, Cord L. Arnold, Anne L'Huillier

Faculty Publications

Ultrafast processes in matter can be captured and even controlled by using sequences of few-cycle optical pulses, which need to be well characterized, both in amplitude and phase. The same degree of control has not yet been achieved for few-cycle extreme ultraviolet pulses generated by high-order harmonic generation (HHG) in gases, with duration in the attosecond range. Here, we show that by varying the spectral phase and carrier-envelope phase (CEP) of a high-repetition rate laser, using dispersion in glass, we achieve a high degree of control of the relative phase and CEP between consecutive attosecond pulses. The experimental results are …

System Nonlinear Performance Of Low-Rise Buildings Under Database-Assisted Hurricane Loads, Jing He

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Light-frame wood buildings account for over 95% of all residential structures in the U.S, of which the majority are designed as low-rise buildings. These low-rise residential buildings in the U.S. have performed unsatisfactorily and are the largest source of the damage and fatality during the past extreme wind events. To deepen the understanding and reduce the vulnerability of the infrastructures, the accurate prediction of the hurricane loss has been an urgent need, and the hurricane catastrophe models are developed in response. However, the current hurricane catastrophe models are focused on the economy loss estimation rather than investigating the root causes …

The Effects Of Tree Plantations And Land Use On Natural Regeneration Of Woody Plants In The Tropics: Diversity, Species Composition, Successional Dynamics, And Functional Traits, John Benjamin Longworth

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

As anthropogenic forests become more common in the tropics, there is a greater need to understand the factors that impact forest succession. I used censuses of woody plants in successional forests to study the effects of prior land use and tree plantations on species composition and richness. First, I tested the hypothesis that communities originating from different land uses were converging in species composition over time. I compared species composition using the Chao-Jaccard similarity index. I observed shifts in the dominant species during the first 30 years of succession, but not convergence of species composition in sites with different land-use …

Interaction Of Cocoa Powder With Intestinal Microbiota, Zuyin Li

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Cocoa powder contains polyphenolic compounds, which can provide potential health benefits to humans. The human gastroinestinal tract hosts diverse microorganisms which are called the human gut microbiota. These microbes can utilize carbohydrates through fermentation resulting in the production of short chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which cause a reduction of pH in gastroinestinal tract. The cocoa processing can change the composition of the carbohydrates, which can affect the fermentation patterns.

In this study we established an in vitro model system which simulated gastric digestion and colon fermentation. Five different processed cocoa samples (alkalized cocoa samples: D-11-B and D-11-S; non-alkalized cocoa samples: …

Biomedical Applications Of Hydrogels And Gumbos, Kelsey Elizabeth Mcneel

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Sodium deoxycholate (NaDC) is a small bile salt that was used in this dissertation to produce gelation of tris(hydroxymethyl)amino-methane (TRIS) solutions above, below, and near the pKa of NaDC. These solutions respectively yielded a neutral gelator, a charged gelator, and a mixture of each. Impacts of ionic interactions on gel formation were studied in detail and showed that pH can be used to modify many hydrogel properties including sol-gel temperature, crystallinity, and mechanical strength. It was also observed that pH modification of the hydrogels affected nanoparticle formation. Nanoparticles derived from a Group of Uniform Materials Based on Organic Salts (nanoGUMBOS), …

Von-Neumann Stability And Singularity Resolution In Loop Quantized Schwarzschild Black Hole, Alec Yonika, Gaurav Khanna, Parampreet Singh

Faculty Publications

Though loop quantization of several spacetimes has exhibited existence of a bounce via an explicit evolution of states using numerical simulations, the question about the way central singularity is resolved in the black hole interior has remained open. The quantum Hamiltonian constraint in loop quantization turns out to be a finite difference equation whose stability is important to understand to gain insights on the viability of the underlying quantization and resulting physical implications. We take first steps towards addressing these issues for a loop quantization of the Schwarzschild interior recently given by Corichi and Singh. Von-Neumann stability analysis is performed …

High Bio-Content Polyurethane (Pu) Foam Made From Bio-Polyol And Cellulose Nanocrystals (Cncs) Via Microwave Liquefaction, Xingyan Huang, Cornelis F. De Hoop, Jiulong Xie, Qinglin Wu, Dorin Boldor, Jinqiu Qi

Faculty Publications

In this work, both the bio-polyol and cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) used to produce high bio-content polyurethane (PU) foams were prepared from microwave liquefaction of rape straw. As high as 40% petro-based polyol was replaced by bio-polyol and the bio-foams containing 40% bio-polyol (PU40) were further reinforced by incorporating 1 to 6% CNCs. GC–MS, 1H NMR and FTIR observations demonstrated that the bio-polyol is a hydroxyl-rich source consisting of C5, C6 sugars and aromatics. The maximum physico-mechanical performance of bio-foam without CNCs was observed from the bio-foam containing 20% bio-polyol. When further increasing bio-polyol content from 20 to 40%, these properties …

Determining Bioindicators For Coastal Tidal Marsh Health Using The Food Web Of Larvae Of The Greenhead Horse Fly (Tabanus Nigrovittatus), Devika Rajeev Bhalerao

LSU Master's Theses

The greenhead horse fly Tabanus nigrovittatus Macquart is native to coastal marshlands from Texas to Nova Scotia. The larvae are apex invertebrate predators and their development is dependent on the food web in the soil. Surveillance of T. nigrovittatus after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico showed population crashes of adults in the coastal marshes of East Louisiana near places where oil made landfall, but not in West Louisiana where the oil did not reach. Sediment collection in 2011 from West and East Louisiana revealed larval population crashes in the Eastern coastal region. We hypothesized …

The Effects Of Accelerated Reader On 6th Grade At-Risk African American Males' Motivation As It Relates To Foucault's Power/Knowledge Theory, Theresa Williams

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

THE EFFECTS OF ACCELERATED READER ON 6TH GRADE AT-RISK AFRICAN AMERICAN MALES' MOTIVATION RELATED TO FOUCAULT'S POWER/KNOWLEDGE THEORY.

This interpretive qualitative study explored the effectiveness of the computerized reading management software, Accelerated Reader, on a select group of at-risk sixth grade African American male students' motivation to read as it relates to Michele Foucault's power/knowledge theory. The data was collected from 16 Black adolescent male students and their four English language arts teachers. The study was guided by one overreaching research question, and four sub questions probed students' self perception, motivations, teachers' perceptions, and power knowledge relations and practices. …

Quantum Coherence In Photo-Ionisation With Tailored Xuv Pulses, Stefanos Carlström, Johan Mauritsson, Kenneth J. Schafer, Anne L'Huillier, Mathieu Gisselbrecht

Faculty Publications

Ionisation with ultrashort pulses in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) regime can be used to prepare an ion in a superposition of spin-orbit substates. In this work, we study the coherence properties of such a superposition, created by ionising xenon atoms using two phase-locked XUV pulses at different frequencies. In general, if the duration of the driving pulse exceeds the quantum beat period, dephasing will occur. If however, the frequency difference of the two pulses matches the spin-orbit splitting, the coherence can be efficiently increased and dephasing does not occur.

The Graphs And Matroids Whose Only Odd Circuits Are Small, Kristen Nicole Wetzler

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis is motivated by a graph-theoretical result of Maffray, which states that a 2-connected graph with no odd cycles exceeding length 3 is bipartite, is isomorphic to K_4, or is a collection of triangles glued together along a common edge. We first prove that a connected simple binary matroid M has no odd circuits other than triangles if and only if M is affine, M is M(K_4) or F_7, or M is the cycle matroid of a graph consisting of a collection of triangles glued together along a common edge. This result implies that a 2-connected loopless graph G …

Independent Association Of Resting Energy Expenditure With Blood Pressure: Confirmation In Populations Of The African Diaspora, Chloe Creber, Richard S. Cooper, Jacob Plange-Rhule, Pascal Bovet, Estelle V. Lambert, Terrence E. Forrester, Dale Schoeller, Walter Riesen, Wolfgang Korte, Guichan Cao, Amy Luke, Lara R. Dugas

Faculty Publications

Background: Obesity is a major risk factor for hypertension, however, the physiologic mechanisms linking increased adiposity to elevations in blood pressure are not well described. An increase in resting energy expenditure (REE) is an obligatory consequence of obesity. Previous survey research has demonstrated that REE is an independent predictor of blood pressure, and eliminates the co-linear association of body mass index. This observation has received little attention and there have been no attempts to provide a causal explanation. Methods: At baseline in an international comparative study on obesity, 289 participants aged 25-44 were recruited from communities in the US, the …

Reaction Rate For Carbon Burning In Massive Stars, C. L. Jiang, D. Santiago-Gonzalez, S. Almaraz-Calderon, K. E. Rehm, B. B. Back, K. Auranen, M. L. Avila, A. D. Ayangeakaa, S. Bottoni, M. P. Carpenter, C. Dickerson, B. Digiovine, J. P. Greene, C. R. Hoffman, R. V.F. Janssens, B. P. Kay, S. A. Kuvin, T. Lauritsen, R. C. Pardo, J. Sethi, D. Seweryniak, R. Talwar, C. Ugalde, S. Zhu, D. Bourgin, S. Courtin, F. Haas, M. Heine, G. Fruet, D. Montanari, D. G. Jenkins, L. Morris, A. Lefebvre-Schuhl

Faculty Publications

Carbon burning is a critical phase for nucleosynthesis in massive stars. The conditions for igniting this burning stage, and the subsequent isotope composition of the resulting ashes, depend strongly on the reaction rate for C12+C12 fusion at very low energies. Results for the cross sections for this reaction are influenced by various backgrounds encountered in measurements at such energies. In this paper, we report on a new measurement of C12+C12 fusion cross sections where these backgrounds have been minimized. It is found that the astrophysical S factor exhibits a maximum around Ecm=3.5-4.0 MeV, which leads to a reduction of the …

Carbon Dioxide Fluxes And Plants Interactions Across The Succession Of A Created Brackish Marsh In Southwestern Louisiana, Andy T. Muench

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine: 1) carbon dioxide (CO₂) fluxes in different plant communities in a created and natural brackish marsh and 2) the role of an early colonizing species, Spartina alterniflora, in facilitating or suppressing a later colonizer and higher marsh species, Spartina patens. CO₂ fluxes were measured in four key successional stages: 1) non-vegetated sediment of a newly created marsh; 2) Spartina alterniflora-dominated areas of a newly created marsh; 3) S. alterniflora-dominated natural marsh; and 4) Spartina patens- dominated natural marsh. Spartina alterniflora-dominated areas were sinks for …

Benefit Of Intensity Modulated Bolus Electron Conformal Therapy For Post Mastectomy Chest Wall Irradiation, John Doiron

LSU Master's Theses

Purpose: The delivery of post-mastectomy radiotherapy (PMRT) with bolus electron conformal therapy (BECT) for patients with left-sided breast cancer can reduce second cancer complication probability (SCCP) compared to modern rotational intensity modulated x-ray (IMXT) techniques such as volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) or Tomotherapy. However, rotational IMXT yields superior levels of dose homogeneity compared to BECT. This study investigates the use of intensity modulated (IM) BECT (IM-BECT) to improve dose homogeneity in the chest wall (CW) region of the PMRT planning target volume (PTV) abutted to parallel opposed IMXT tangents for the remaining PTV for a clinically-representative set of patients, …

Barocaloric And Magnetocaloric Effects In (Mnnisi)1-X(Fecoge)X, Tapas Samanta, Pol Lloveras, Ahmad Us Saleheen, Daniel L. Lepkowski, Emily Kramer, Igor Dubenko, Philip W. Adams, David P. Young, Maria Barrio, Josep Ll Tamarit, Naushad Ali, Shane Stadler

Faculty Publications

(MnNiSi)1-x(FeCoGe)x undergoes a magnetostructural phase transition near room temperature that is acutely sensitive to applied hydrostatic pressure, which presents as a marked shift in the martensitic transition temperature (TM) by about -7.5 K/kbar. The magnetostructural transition can therefore be induced by applied hydrostatic pressure or by magnetic field. The barocaloric and magnetocaloric effects were measured across TM (for the sample with x = 0.38), and the corresponding entropy changes were +74 J/kg K (P = 2.7 kbar) and -58 J/kg K (μ0H = 5 T), respectively. It was observed that the transition entropy change increases with pressure, which results in …

An Evaluation Of The Groundwater Microbial Community's Toluene Biogenesis Potential At A Site In Southeast Louisiana, Michael A. Griffin Jr.

LSU Master's Theses

The broad goal of the research described in this thesis was to better understand the potential for biological toluene production to occur in groundwater at a Superfund Site located in southeast Louisiana. Previous literature reported that bacterial isolates under laboratory test conditions and undefined microbial communities in anaerobic sludge digesters and seasonally stratified lakes can produce toluene biogenically. Most of the research reported on this subject previously, however, has been on systems in Europe and little research has been reported previously on such phenomena in North America.

In the research described here, studies were conducted utilizing groundwater from a Superfund …

Nextgen Voices: Research Resolutions, Felicia Olmeta-Schult, Lauren Massa Segal, Sam Tyner, Twila Alexandra Moon, Ryan Dz Wei Chow, Prosanta Chakrabarty, Martin Pacesa, Anna Igorevna Podgornaia, Jennifer Chen, Bipin Singh, Bo Cao, Rishi Raj Singh Sidhu, Bryce W.Q. Tan, Prashant Sood, Stuart Parker, Matthew A. Scult, Desiree Van Haute, Nikos Konstantinides, Beat A. Schwendimann, Sudhakar Srivastava, Raffaele Fiorenza, Ken Dutton-Regester, Rachel Hale, Emre Ozan Polat, Edward Lau, Audrey L. Mayer, Easton R. White

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Evolution Of The Maximum Upper Level Divergence Field In Gulf-Atlantic Tropical Cyclogenesis, Sara A. Ates

LSU Master's Theses

Upper-level (horizontal) divergence (ULD) is an important variable in tropical weather systems. As part of the circulation within a tropical cyclone (TC), it carries air in the upper troposphere away from the center of circulation (COC). To date, most research assumes the 200 hPa pressure level (approximately 12 km, varying with latitude and time of year) as the height for maximum ULD in a TC, possibly because weather observation at the 200 hPa level by radiosonde have remained mandatory for aviation purposes. The more recent availability of gridded, high-spatial-resolution, global “reanalysis” data at multiple levels, along with improvements in spatial …

Metavirome Sequencing Of The Termite Gut Reveals The Presence Of An Unexplored Bacteriophage Community, Chinmay V. Tikhe, Claudia Husseneder

Faculty Publications

The Formosan subterranean termite; Coptotermes formosanus is nutritionally dependent on the complex and diverse community of bacteria and protozoa in their gut. Although, there have been many studies to decipher the taxonomic and functional diversity of bacterial communities in the guts of termites, their bacteriophages remain unstudied. We sequenced the metavirome of the guts of Formosan subterranean termite workers to study the diversity of bacteriophages and other associated viruses. Results showed that the termites harbor a virome in their gut comprised of varied and previously unknown bacteriophages. Between 87-90% of the predicted dsDNA virus genes by Metavir showed similarity to …

Childhood Interrupted: An Autoethnography Of Supporting Learning, Development, And Foster Parenting, Alica Legaye Benton

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this autoethnography is to investigate my adopted child’s literacy skills and the impact an interrupted childhood has on literacy development. Learning to read and write encompasses multiple facets of cognition and aspiration. An autoethnography of multiple interruptions in this child’s formative years while fostering her literacy development will be chronicled, examined, analyzed, and interpreted. This autoethnography focuses on the acquisition of oral language and early reading and writing skills when there is a loss of childhood stability. Data were collected through observations, artifacts, and a reflective journal. Data were analyzed using eclectic coding in order to identify …

Diversionary Behavior During Congestion, Venkata Vamsikrishna Peddisetty

LSU Master's Theses

Most people in the US prefer to travel on freeways, but when there is congestion they divert onto local routes to avoid travel delay. This study measures the traffic diversion induced by an increase in congestion on I-10 freeway in Baton Rouge during congestion, using a Bluetooth Detection System. The main objective of the study was to identify the difference in the level of congestion on the I-10 between the Mississippi River Bridge and the I-10/I-12 split and the level of congestion on local roads that triggers traffic to divert from the freeway to parallel arterials. Other objectives include measuring …

Analysis Of Veterinary Drug Residues In Imported And Domestic Crawfish Using Liquid Chromatography—Mass Spectrometry, Emily Kate Wall

LSU Master's Theses

Aquaculture production has greatly increased over the past few decades, and will continue to grow as the world fisheries become overfished and demand for seafood increases. With increased production comes more intense cultivation methods and heavy use of formulated feeds that may contain veterinary drug residues. Currently no antibiotics are allowed in the U.S. for crawfish aquaculture; yet, detectable levels of various antibiotics have been found in imported seafood samples.The FDA is responsible for testing aquaculture products entering the United States, but only has the capabilities to test a minimal amount of those imports. Additionally, for crawfish there is only …