Digital Commons Network^™

Leveraging The Genomic Tools To Explore The Molecular Basis Of Salinity Tolerance In Rice And Soybean, Rajat Pruthi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Salinity stress significantly challenges agricultural productivity, particularly affecting major crops like rice and soybean. This research investigates the genetic basis of salt tolerance in both crops through high-resolution genetic mapping, genome-wide association studies (GWAS), and RNA-Seq analysis. In rice, we examined quantitative trait loci (QTLs) associated with salt tolerance at the seedling and flowering stages using a population of advanced backcrossed introgression lines (ILs). A genetic map, constructed with 14,230 polymorphic SNP markers, identified distinct QTLs and candidate genes for salt tolerance at both stages, suggesting differential genetic controls. Notable genes such as OsHAK13 and OsCYP21-4 were upregulated under salt …

The Role Of Sexual Network Core Groups In Disease Epidemics, Jason Janeaux

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) remain an economic and social burden, non-discriminately affecting sexually active individuals worldwide. The unique transmission of STIs is dependent upon host and pathogen life histories, as well as the underlying network structure of the host population. Within a population there is a group of individuals, the core group, that maintains STI presence and helps sustain ongoing transmission both within the core group and in the surrounding population. While the presence of these core groups is well documented, the criteria for inclusion into a sexual core group is not. In this dissertation, I explore common factors that …

The Impact Of Xenophobia On Agricultural Trade In South Africa, Maxwell Peprah Amponsem

LSU Master's Theses

The growing number of farm attacks and xenophobia is one of the most serious crime issues facing the South African government. This study examines the impact of xenophobia on agricultural trade, using port-level trade data and xenophobia incident records from 2010 to 2023. Utilizing fixed effects Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) specifications, I find a significant negative impact of xenophobia on agricultural exports, while non-agricultural trade remains unaffected. These findings highlight the need for targeted policy interventions to combat xenophobic violence and stabilize the agricultural sector, ensuring the continuity of South Africa's trade and economic growth.

Towards Addressing Mental Health In Rural Louisiana: Blueberry Supplementation As A Natural Intervention, Katy E. Venable

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Depression and anxiety are major public health issues; however, there is an unmet need for novel effective and accessible treatments, particularly in rural communities. Blueberries are an unexplored nutraceutical for these conditions due to their excellent nutritional profile, with particularly high levels of polyphenols and anthocyanins and benefits on mood, cognition, and health. Therefore, we conducted a double-blind, randomized pilot study in a rural population. We employed a cross-over design to test the effects of 12 weeks daily ingestion of 24 g of whole freeze-dried blueberry powder versus placebo on symptoms of depression and anxiety in those diagnosed with depression …

Unpacking Influence: Dissecting Engagement Drivers And Dynamics For Effective Influencer Marketing Strategies, Nichole W. Santee

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Despite influencer marketing's growing significance, brands face challenges in identifying the most effective influencers for their campaigns. This dissertation addresses a gap in influencer marketing engagement literature, focusing on the determinants of consumer engagement in social media interactions.

The impact of specific characteristics found within the proposed influencer marketing sender-receiver communication model on eight behavioral social media engagement metrics is analyzed through a non-traditional content analysis of 218 Instagram influencers utilizing AI analytics platforms. Results reveal several characteristics that significantly affect behavioral engagement, while others have conflicting effects, highlighting the complex nature of the IM industry. Eight hierarchical regressions showed …

Revisionary Taxonomy Within The Acmaeoderini, Joel Dubois

LSU Master's Theses

The jewel beetles (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) are the 8th largest family of beetles and fill various important ecological roles including decomposers, pollinators, and leaf miners. The cosmopolitan buprestid tribe Acmaeoderini is extremely diverse, with more than 700 species across 14 genera. Historically, the acmaederines from Afro-Eurasia have received thorough morphological treatment and nearly all species from these areas have been separated into various genus and subgenus groupings. Contrastingly, past studies in the Americas have been mostly restricted to alpha-level taxonomic descriptions, and only a very small percentage of species are placed into any formal group. The aim of this study was …

Investigations And Characterization Of Loud Transient Noise In Advanced Ligo Detectors, Shania Nichols

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In the era of gravitational wave (GW) astronomy, the detection of cosmic events such as black hole and neutron star mergers has become routine due to the Advanced LIGO (aLIGO) detectors. However, the sensitivity of these detectors also makes them susceptible to loud transient noise, which can obscure GW signals. This thesis investigates loud transient noise with a Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) greater than 100, focusing particularly on the most extreme transients with SNR exceeding 1000.

We begin by analyzing the impact of loud transient noise on the binary neutron star (BNS) range of aLIGO detectors across observation runs O2, O3, …

27-Hydroxycholesterol Acts On Estrogen Receptor Α Expressed By Pomc Neurons In The Arcuate Nucleus To Modulate Feeding Behavior, Hui Ye, Xiaohua Yang, Bing Feng, Pei Luo, Valeria C.Torres Irizarry, Leslie Carrillo-Sáenz, Meng Yu, Yongjie Yang, Benjamin P. Eappen, Marcos David Munoz, Nirali Patel, Sarah Schaul, Lucas Ibrahimi, Penghua Lai, Xinyue Qi, Yuliang Zhou, Maya Kota, Devin Dixit, Madeline Mun, Chong Wee Liew, Yuwei Jiang, Chunmei Wang, Yanlin He, Pingwen Xu

Division of Basic Science Faculty Publications

Oxysterols are metabolites of cholesterol that regulate cholesterol homeostasis. Among these, the most abundant oxysterol is 27-hydroxycholesterol (27HC), which can cross the blood-brain barrier. Because 27HC functions as an endogenous selective estrogen receptor modulator, we hypothesize that 27HC binds to the estrogen receptor α (ERα) in the brain to regulate energy balance. Supporting this view, we found that delivering 27HC to the brain reduced food intake and activated proopiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus (POMCARH) in an ERα-dependent manner. In addition, we observed that inhibiting brain ERα, deleting ERα in POMC neurons, or chemogenetic inhibition of …

An International Multidisciplinary Consensus On Pediatric Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Fatty Liver Disease, Le Zhang, Mortada El-Shabrawi, Louise A. Baur, Christopher D. Byrne, Giovanni Targher, Mohit Kehar, Gilda Porta, Way Seah Lee, Sander Lefere, Serap Turan, Anna Alisi, Ram Weiss, Maria Felicia Faienza, Ambika Ashraf, Shikha S. Sundaram, Anshu Srivastava, Ruth De Bruyne, Yunkoo Kang, Flora Bacopoulou, Yong Hai Zhou, Andy Darma, Monica Lupsor-Platon, Masahide Hamaguchi, Anoop Misra, Nahum Méndez-Sánchez, Nicholas Beng Hui Ng, Claude Marcus, Amanda E. Staiano, Nadia Waheed, Saleh A. Alqahtani, Cosimo Giannini, Ponsiano Ocama, Mindie H. Nguyen, Maria Teresa Arias-Loste

Population and Public Health Science Faculty Publications

Background: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is highly prevalent in children and adolescents, particularly those with obesity. NAFLD is considered a hepatic manifestation of the metabolic syndrome due to its close associations with abdominal obesity, insulin resistance, and atherogenic dyslipidemia. Experts have proposed an alternative terminology, metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD), to better reflect its pathophysiology. This study aimed to develop consensus statements and recommendations for pediatric MAFLD through collaboration among international experts. Methods: A group of 65 experts from 35 countries and six continents, including pediatricians, hepatologists, and endocrinologists, participated in a consensus development process. The process encompassed …

Asmrtistry In Immersive Sound: Investigating The Effectiveness Of Immersive Sound Technologies In Eliciting Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, Scott D. Nelson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Despite a wide array of immersive sound technologies available to digital media creators who specialize in making audio-visual content that aims to elicit Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR), only a few sound reproduction modalities are widely used: mono/stereo and binaural recording. To date, nearly all research studying ASMR, a bio-sensory phenomenon wherein people feel brain tingles triggered by calming audio-visual cues, has been content to carry out ASMR studies entirely with stereo and binaural sound reproduction methods. Therefore, it stands to reason that more understanding about how diverse immersive sound modalities like wave field synthesis, or three-dimensional spatial audio for …

Impact Of Containment And Elevation On Created Marsh Plant Community And Ecosystem Dynamics, Kevin R. Stoner

LSU Master's Theses

Coastal marsh restoration is increasing globally, as marshes are impacted by anthropogenic impacts. Billions of dollars are allocated to marsh restoration in the Mississippi River delta where wetland loss rates are extremely high. The recovery of structural and functional attributes of created marshes varies by attribute measured and project. Here, two marshes created in 2018 and one natural marsh were used to examine how variations in hydrologic connectivity and marsh elevation influence subsurface hydrology and salinity, vegetation community structure, soil properties, accretion, and denitrification. I established a comparative field study in a created marsh contained within a higher elevation containment …

Higher Order Operator Splitting Schemes With Complex Coefficients And Applications, Arun Banjara

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The goal of this dissertation is to apply the concept of Lie generators for linear semigroups induced by nonlinear flows, originally developed by J. R. Dorroh and J. W. Neuberger in the 1990’s [15], to approximate solutions of initial value problems like

x′(t) = F(x(t)), x(0) = x₀, (1)

where F = (F₁,··· ,F_N), and F_i : R^N ⊃ Ω -> R^N. The method, sometimes referred to as ``Bernard Koopman’s Global Linearization Method,” traces its origins back to the works of Sophus Lie in the 1890’s [30], Gerhard Kowalewski in …

Performance Assessment Of Aboveground Storage Tanks During Flood Events, Md Manik Mia

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This research addressed the performance of aboveground storage tanks (ASTs) and connected pipelines during floods. ASTs, integral to the oil and gas industry, store hazardous materials like crude oil and chemicals. Positioned near coastal regions, especially the hurricane-prone Gulf Coast, these areas are vulnerable to natural hazards such as floods and hurricanes. This vulnerability can lead to potential environmental and economic disasters, as seen with past hurricanes.
The primary objectives were to investigate AST bottom plate failure mechanisms under flood conditions, assess material failure in tank shells and bottom plates using finite element models, examine the behavior of connected pipelines, …

Hydrogen Adsorption On Ordered And Disordered Pt-Fe And Pt-Co Alloys, Andrew Okafor, William A. Shelton, Ye Xu

Faculty Publications

The bulk properties and surface chemical reactivity of compositionally disordered Pt-Fe and Pt-Co alloys in the fcc A1 phase have been investigated theoretically in comparison to the ordered alloys of the same compositions. The results are analyzed together with our previously reported findings for Pt-Ni. Nonlinear variation is observed in lattice constant, d band center, magnetic moment, and hydrogen adsorption energy across the composition range (0-100 atomic % of Pt, xPt). The Pt 5d states are strongly perturbed by the 3d states of the base metals, leading to notable density of states above the Fermi level and residual magnetic moments …

Hurricane Vulnerability Of Above Ground Storage Tanks, Santosh Ghimire

LSU Master's Theses

The objectives of this research were to: 1) develop an approach to determine the effectiveness of regional storm surge reduction strategies and structural mitigation measures for aboveground storage tanks (ASTs), and 2) study the feasibility of controlled flotation of ASTs during flood and storm surge events. This study provided a comprehensive risk assessment strategy for regional portfolio of tanks, considering all dominant failure modes relevant to future planning initiatives aimed at reducing AST failures. Additionally, this research contributed a new methodology to prevent AST failures during flooding, offering a potential solution to prevent hazardous spills.

Design guidelines such as API …

Development And Operationalizing Of The Learning Experience Design Process To Create Integrated Stem Interventions, Vanessa Begat

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Globally, the demand for people prepared to enter Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) careers is increasing. To help fill this demand, many formal and informal STEM educational interventions have been implemented in the K-12 domain. However, due to the lack of a clearly defined framework for documenting the nature and scope of the intervention (National Research Council, 2014), the interventions vary greatly in their success, sustainability, and replicability. This research is grounded in Educational Design Research and uses the principle of Learning Experience Design (LXD) to develop a framework for thoughtfully designing and documenting a STEM intervention. This framework …

Empowering Capacitive Devices: Harnessing Transfer Learning For Enhanced Data-Driven Optimization, Teslim Olayiwola, Revati Kumar, Jose A. Romagnoli

Faculty Publications

Developing data-driven models has found successful applications in engineering tasks, such as material design, process modeling, and process monitoring. In capacitive devices like deionization and supercapacitors, there exists potential for applying this data-driven machine learning (ML) model in optimizing its potential use in energy-efficient separations or energy generation. However, these models are faced with limited datasets, and even in large quantities, the datasets are incomplete, limiting their potential use for successful data-driven modeling. Here, the success of transfer learning in resolving the challenges with limited datasets was exploited. A two-step data-driven ML modeling framework named ImputeNet involving training with ML-imputed …

Assessing Team Performance And Cohesion Of Isolated Multicultural Teams Using Digital Escape Rooms, Susannah J. Aronson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

History has shown that when multicultural teams are together for long periods of time, conflict can occur. When put in an isolated environment, these conflicts can become dangerous. This study looked at physically isolated multicultural teams through the lens of systems engineering and if a publicly available escape room video game could measure the team’s individual level team performance and cohesion. The author also evaluated the relationship between these success measures, cultural intelligence, and fusion collaboration. Results showed the escape room video game was a reliable and valid instrument to measure individual level team performance and cohesion. The validity correlation …

Canine Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Evaluating Pgam5 And Heterobilharzia Americana, Priscilla Devora

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common primary liver cancer in humans and domestic dogs. Despite extensive research, the mechanisms that drive HCC carcinogenesis and perpetuate cancer survival are incompletely understood in both species. The work described herein focused on finding similarities between canine and human HCC, which could be harnessed to benefit humans and dogs with cancer. The first aim was to investigate the expression of phosphoglycerate mutase 5 (PGAM5) in canine HCC. Upregulation of PGAM5 is a negative prognostic indicator in human HCC. Using archival formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded samples, we found that PGAM5 was overexpressed in canine HCC ( …

Mdf-Dta: A Multi-Dimensional Fusion Approach For Drug-Target Binding Affinity Prediction, Amit Ranjan, Adam Bess, Chris Alvin, Supratik Mukhopadhyay

Faculty Publications

Drug-target affinity (DTA) prediction is an important task in the early stages of drug discovery. Traditional biological approaches are time-consuming, effort-consuming, and resource-consuming due to the large size of genomic and chemical spaces. Computational approaches using machine learning have emerged to narrow down the drug candidate search space. However, most of these prediction models focus on single feature encoding of drugs and targets, ignoring the importance of integrating different dimensions of these features. We propose a deep learning-based approach called Multi-Dimensional Fusion for Drug Target Affinity Prediction (MDF-DTA) incorporating different dimensional features. Our model fuses 1D, 2D, and 3D representations …

Design Of Long-Distance Entanglement Distribution Protocols For Quantum Networks, Stav Haldar

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Future quantum technologies such as quantum communication, quantum sensing, and distributed quantum computation, will rely on networks of shared entanglement between spatially separated nodes. Distributing entanglement between these nodes, especially over long distances, currently remains a challenge, due to limitations resulting from the fragility of quantum systems, such as photon losses, non-ideal measurements, and quantum memories with short coherence times. In the absence of full-scale fault-tolerant quantum error correction, which can in principle overcome these limitations, we should understand the extent to which we can circumvent these limitations. In this work, we provide improved protocols and policies for entanglement distribution …

High-Resolution Groundwater Modeling For Understanding Sparta-Memphis Aquifer Condition, Rafin Hasan

LSU Master's Theses

The Sparta-Memphis aquifer is one of the major sources of domestic and industrial water supplies in the Mississippi Embayment region. However, besides altering the natural direction of flow, several serious complications such as elevated chloride concentration, significant water level decline, large cones of depression, and land subsidence have arisen from excessive groundwater consumption. To better understand the Sparta-Memphis aquifer condition, a high-resolution groundwater flow model for the Sparta-Memphis aquifer was developed in this study to assess groundwater availability and analyze aquifer responses to future groundwater withdrawal scenarios. For the development of the groundwater flow model, firstly about 3,700 electrical log …

Modeling And Reduction Of High Frequency Scatter Noise At Ligo Livingston, Siddharth Soni, Jane Glanzer, Anamaria Effler, Valera Frolov, Gabriela González, Arnaud Pele, Robert Schofield

Faculty Publications

The sensitivity of aLIGO detectors is adversely affected by the presence of noise caused by light scattering. Low frequency seismic disturbances can create higher frequency scattering noise adversely impacting the frequency band in which we detect gravitational waves. In this paper, we analyze instances of a type of scattered light noise we call ‘Fast Scatter’ that is produced by motion at frequencies greater than 1 Hz, to locate surfaces in the detector that may be responsible for the noise. We model the phase noise to better understand the relationship between increases in seismic noise near the site and the resulting …

Optimizing Associative Memory In Autistic And Non-Autistic Adults: Retrieval Practice, Post-Retrieval Feedback, And Gesture, Brianna E. Cairney

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Associative memory—or the ability to form a memory representation linking two previously unrelated concepts—is a critical aspect of learning. This work provides insight into strategies that can be used to support associative memory, their underlying mechanisms, and their effectiveness in autistic and non-autistic learners. Chapter 1 demonstrates that iconic gestures can be used as a tool to enhance associative memory by increasing word concreteness and imageability. This effect was eliminated when the iconic gestures were interspersed with ambiguous nonsense gestures, suggesting a boundary on these benefits that depends on listener expectations regarding gesture clarity. However, it remains unknown whether gestures …

Medical Management Vs Bariatric Surgery In Type 2 Diabetes - Reply, Anita P. Courcoulas, Mary Elizabeth Patti, John P. Kirwan

Division of Basic Science Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Design, Construction, And Testing Of Nucleic Acid Vaccines Against Salmonella Enterica Subspecies Enterica Serovar Javiana, Alexis A. Nguyen

LSU Master's Theses

Salmonella spp. is a Gram-negative bacterium that has the ability to replicate within a variety of hosts, or within the environment, including water, soil, and vegetation. These characteristics, coupled with the zoonotic nature of non-typhoidal Salmonella, pose a significant public health concern. Salmonella is the leading cause of foodborne illnesses worldwide, and in the United States alone, the economic impact due to non-typhoidal Salmonella illnesses in 2013 was estimated to be $3.7 billion, the majority of which were due to mortalities. In a time of rising antibiotic resistance, antibiotics are no longer considered the most effective treatment for …

Holomorphic Functional Calculus Approach To The Characteristic Function Of Quantum Observables, Andreas Boukas

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Quantifying Compound And Nonlinear Effects Of Hurricane-Induced Flooding Using A Dynamically Coupled Hydrological-Ocean Model, Daoyang Bao, Z. George Xue, John C. Warner

Faculty Publications

We recently developed a dynamically coupled hydrological-ocean modeling system that provides seamless coverage across the land-ocean continuum during hurricane-induced compound flooding. This study introduced a local inertial equation and a diagonal flow algorithm to the overland routing of the coupled system’s hydrology model (WRF-Hydro). Using Hurricane Florence (2018) as a test case, the performance of the coupled model was significantly improved, evidenced by its enhanced capability of capturing backwater and increased water level simulation accuracy and stability. With four model experiments, we present a framework to detangle, define, and quantify compound and nonlinear effects. The results revealed that the flood …

A Roadmap To The Next-Generation Technology-Enabled Learning-Centered Environments In Aec Education, Yimin Zhu, Amirhosein Jafari, Amir H. Behzadan, Raja R.A. Issa

Faculty Publications

The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) education communities are increasingly facing challenges caused by social, technological, economic, environmental, and political changes. Addressing these issues requires AEC educators and practitioners to systematically rethink and reform many of their current practices. Anecdotal evidence in AEC education already exists with respect to pedagogical improvements made by individual technologies such as immersive computing, artificial intelligence, robotics, big data, cyberinfrastructure, and photogrammetry. However, an effective learning-centered environment is more complex than what any single technology can accomplish. In addition, the relationship between technology-intensive learning and digital inequity in AEC education remains, to the most extent, …

A Compressive Load Bearing Analysis Of 3d-Printed Circular Elements, Ilerioluwa Giwa, Ali Kazemian, Vijaya Gopu, Tyson Rupnow

Faculty Publications

Large-scale construction 3D printing is a promising platform technology that can be leveraged to fabricate structural elements such as columns, piers, pipes, and culverts. In this study, the axial compression and split tensile performance of 3D-printed steel-fiber-reinforced circular elements fabricated with different configurations (hollow, hybrid, mold-cast, and fully 3D-printed) is evaluated. This study further investigates the performance of multi-material circular hybrid elements (3D-printed shells with different backfilled core materials) in an attempt to assess their suitability as a new construction paradigm. The experimental results revealed that the fully 3D-printed steel-fiber-reinforced circular elements exhibited a higher load capacity (up to 36%) …