Digital Commons Network^™

Distributed Graph Computation In C++ Using Hpx, Panagiotis Syskakis

LSU Master's Theses

Graph analytics are central to applications, ranging from scientific computing to social-network analysis. Many large graph workloads exceed the memory capacity and performance capabilities of a single machine. Existing distributed graph systems often force a trade-off between programmability and performance: high-level platforms can incur substantial runtime overheads, while lower-level distributed libraries frequently expose complex or fragile programming models. This thesis investigates whether modern C++ can support generic distributed graph algorithms that remain both expressive and efficient. We present a prototype distributed graph library in C++ built on the HPX runtime system and guided by the abstractions of the NWGraph library. …

Making The Right Decisions For Adaptive Radiotherapy, Chloe C.F. Ditusa

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Purpose: Daily anatomical changes can invalidate the geometric, dosimetric, and biological assumptions of reference radiotherapy plans, yet quantitative evidence describing fraction-level deviations across disease sites remains limited. This work developed and evaluated a metric-based framework for daily dose assessment to characterize temporal treatment behavior and inform adaptive decision-making in Head and Neck (H&N) radiotherapy and Prostate stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT). Methods: A web-based Dashboard was created to compute geometric, dosimetric, and radiobiological metrics from daily dose recalculations. Calculations were first verified against a commercial treatment-planning analysis platform. Daily dose on anatomy-of-the-day was reconstructed using CBCT-based pseudo-CTs for H&N and daily …

Secondary English Teachers’ Perceptions And Experiences With The Ela Guidebooks Curriculum: A Phenomenological Study, Bodie Dufrene

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

As standards-based curriculum reforms expand across the United States, school districts have increasingly adopted scripted curricular materials to promote coherence across classroom practice and strengthen alignment to standardized assessments. Within Louisiana, efforts to align English instruction to the Common Core State Standards manifested in the creation of the ELA Guidebooks curriculum by the Louisiana Department of Education. Guidebooks provides teachers with sequenced units of instruction organized around a central novel, explicit directions, pacing guidance, and cumulative writing tasks aligned to central unit questions. This qualitative study explored how secondary (i.e., grades 6-12) English teachers perceived and described their experiences implementing …

Curriculum For A Two Semester Calculus Course Specializing In Life Science And Data Science, Patrick Mcclain

LSU Master's Theses

Traditionally, introductory calculus has been designed for engineering and physics students, often leaving students majoring in data science or life sciences with a curriculum that lacks professional relevance and is overly reliant on problems that focus on computational fluency. This thesis proposes a two-semester sequence, called MATH 153X and MATH 154X, specifically tailored for the Louisiana State University (LSU) Dual Enrollment program and university-level data science and life sciences majors. By integrating modern computational tools—such as symbolic calculators and artificial intelligence (AI) tools—the proposed curriculum shifts the pedagogical focus from procedural symbolic manipulation toward conceptual literacy.

Through a series …

Spanish Phonetic Production In Heritage Speakers Vs. L2 Learners: The Effects Of Pedagogical Intervention, Ty Donley

LSU Master's Theses

This study examines both phonetic realizations of heritage speakers and L2 students of Spanish as well as the effectiveness of a short-term phonetic-based pedagogical intervention for L2 students of Spanish. 24 university students participated in recorded Spanish speech tasks that were analyzed acoustically using PRAAT. The analysis focused on vowel spacing, aspiration (VOT), spirantization (RID), rhotic accuracy, and the oral realization of the grapheme “v”. Heritage speakers generally produced more native-like phonetic patterns than L2 learners, although both groups exhibited evidence of English phonological influence. L2 learners completed both pre- and post-instruction speech tasks following a 20 to 25-minute phonetic …

Comparison Of Sampling Methods For Estimation Of Aquatic Insect Diversity And Abundance Across Seasonal Gradients In A Southern U.S. River System, Albert Henry Gasperecz

LSU Master's Theses

Determination of benthic macroinvertebrate assemblage composition plays a vital role in assessment and management of lotic systems throughout the U.S. However, the validity of biomonitoring programs depends on accurate and precise measures of macroinvertebrate abundance, which in turn are dependent on sampling gears and protocols. The goal of this project was to assess how gear selection influences estimates of aquatic insect abundance and diversity, and how this selection can affect biological monitoring practices. I used 4 different gears in 3 southern Mississippi streams to aquatically and terrestrially collect aquatic insects seasonally throughout 2024. I identified and recorded all genera present …

Acquiring Egypt: Napoleon, Joséphine, And The Formation Of France’S Collections Of Egyptian Antiquities, 1792-1822, Anna E. Dow

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the seizure and acquisition of Egyptian antiquities by the French government between 1792 and 1822. During this period, the French government seized antiquities for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was to benefit the French people politically and financially and to support the French ideals of art and civilization. Egyptian antiquities were collected almost accidentally, as French armies confiscated the collections of the wealthy in Paris and the aristocratic collections in Italy. But the presence of the art prompted the curiosity of the French, which led to a greater interest in Egyptian antiquities. However, …

Spatial Narrative Beyond The Proscenium: Set Design As A Tool For Wellness, Christina Griffey

LSU Master's Theses

Inspired by a health crisis that led to spending time in medical settings, this thesis examines how our surroundings impact our well-being. By developing a framework that explores the topics of storytelling, space, place, theatre, and expanded scenography, I propose that set design can be used as a tool for wellness. I explore several disciplines through the lens of set design and highlight the disciplines, professionals, and designers that are contributing to the creation of therapeutic environments using scenographic practices.

Análisis Verbal De La Concordancia Negativa En Estudiantes De Español Como L2 Y Hablantes De Herencia De Una Universidad De Estados Unidos De América, Natalia C. Gallardo Linares

LSU Master's Theses

La concordancia negativa (NC) constituye un rasgo central de la negación en español, en el que un marcador negativo preverbal (no) coocurre con ítems de concordancia negativa (NCIs) posverbales, como nada, para expresar una única negación semántica. Investigaciones previas sobre la adquisición de la concordancia negativa se han centrado principalmente en el papel de la competencia lingüística y de las influencias interlingüísticas, por lo que se ha prestado relativamente menos atención a la contribución de factores lingüísticos internos, como el tipo de verbo. La presente tesis examina la adquisición de la concordancia negativa en español con especial …

Qualitative Versus Quantitative Analysis Of Entheses: Using An Ordinal Scale And 3d Scanned Metrics To Understand Entheseal Differences In The Charity Hospital Cemetery (16or108), Gillian Stewart

LSU Master's Theses

Using a sample from New Orleans’ Charity Hospital Cemetery (16OR108), an analysis between ordinal scores and digital quantitative analysis (DQA) measurements of the entheses (muscle attachment sites) was performed. The skeletal elements (n = 235) examined were the humerus, radius, femur, and tibia. The entheses were 3D scanned using an Artec Space Spider scanner and processed with the Artec Studio Professional© v.2018 and Geomagic Wrap® v.2021 software. Entheses were analyzed by: left and right sides, male and female, and distribution of scores across elements. The analyses yielded significant differences between proliferative and erosive score distribution. Scores between elements exhibited variation. …

An Analysis And Performer's Guide Of Boulder Canyon, Hoover Dam By Clark Hubbard, Tyler Hawk

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Clark Hubbard is currently the Assistant Director of the Vanderbilt Marching and Athletic Bands. He is active as an American percussionist, composer, artist, and educator. His compositions have been performed throughout the United States and overseas, including solo, chamber, percussion, and electronic compositions. This document aims to analyze Boulder Canyon, Hoover Dam, discussing how the fixed media influences musical decisions. This document is also a performer’s guide for the piece.

Percussion with fixed media has been composed for since the early to middle 1900s. Inspiration from the techniques and early pieces of fixed media composition can be found in …

The Impact Of The Two-Way Immersion Model On Hispanic Pre-Service And In-Service Teachers’ Understanding Of Curriculum Implementation In Early Childhood Field Placements, Omar J. Vigo

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Dual language education, also known as Two-Way Immersion (TWI), is a teaching method that puts native English speakers and native speakers of another language in the same classroom. This helps both groups become bilingual and biliterate (Christian, 1996; Lindholm-Leary, 2001). The TWI approach highlights several benefits, including bilingualism and biliteracy, academic achievement, cross-cultural competence, cognitive improvements, and equity and accessibility (Lindholm-Leary, 2001). Research on the TWI model in adults is limited, although it has demonstrated effectiveness in supporting Hispanic teacher candidates, unlike studies conducted in primary education. This demonstrates that the TWI methodology benefits students (Van Booven, 2012). This …

Marine Vehicle Dynamics Using Koopman Operator Theory With Hybrid Observables, Mikhalib A L Green

LSU Master's Theses

Accurate modeling of marine vehicle dynamics remains challenging due to strong nonlinear hydrodynamic effects, environmental disturbances, and sensitivity to configuration changes, particularly for small-scale platforms. Classical physics-based models require extensive parameter identification and often exhibit degraded performance outside narrow operating regimes, while purely data-driven approaches may lack structure or impose high computational cost. This thesis presents a data-driven Koopman operator framework with hybrid observables for modeling the dynamics of unmanned marine vehicles. The proposed approach combines structured monomial observables with a learned neural network embedding to construct a lifted state representation in which the nonlinear vehicle dynamics are approximated by …

Large-Scale File Fragment Classification Via Multi-View Learning, Samuel Hildebrand

LSU Master's Theses

File reassembly is one of the most fundamental tasks in digital forensics, enabling recovery of data from potentially damaged storage media even when file system metadata is unavailable. This thesis reviews more than two decades of work in the realm of file carving, with a particular focus on fragmented file carving, which remains a focus of research, and file fragment classification, a principal component of fragmented file carving. This thesis serves a literature review of both file carving and fragmented file carving, surveys the massive amounts of data needed for the task of fragment classification and the datasets that serve …

Edges That Touch, Tommi Bonomo

LSU Master's Theses

Gender, a social construct, exists on a spectrum that is shaped by social, cultural, and embodied experience. Edges That Touch examines the instability of gender through the lens of combat sports, focusing on the way the hypermasculine environment abstracts femme identities. Informed by my lived experience, the work investigates the paradox in which empowerment and alienation coexist and destabilizes gender binaries.

Edges That Touch uses experimental graphic design processes and mixed media to recreate the psychological landscape and emotional realities that I navigated as a cisgender woman in the world of combat sports. I use visual techniques that obscure legibility …

Expanding Access To Latin American Art Song: A Study Of Theodoro Valcárcel's Andean-Influenced Art Songs, Douglas E. Perez

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

EXPANDING ACCESS TO LATIN AMERICAN ART SONG: A STUDY OF THEODORO VALCÁRCEL’S ANDEAN-INFLUENCED ART SONGS advocates for the exploration and performance of underrepresented Latin American composers. Multiple methods of increasing access are discussed, including the creation of a central source for IPA, literal, and poetic translations of Latin American art songs; the study of seldom-performed composers, their output, and influences; and the application of these elements through informed performance. This document centers on the Peruvian composer Theodoro Valcárcel and analyzes the intersection of his indigenous heritage with his Latin American and European musical training as reflected in his compositional style …

Key Elements Of Mission-Based Urban Agriculture In The United States Aimed At Addressing The Social Determinants Of Health, Jordan Losavio

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Urban agriculture (UA) in the United States (U.S.) is increasingly positioned as a multi-domain strategy for addressing social determinants of health (SDOH), yet evidence is fragmented and often focused on participant outcomes rather than the organizational and environmental conditions that determine whether those benefits can be sustained, expanded, or maintained over time. This dissertation uses an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design to clarify (1) what SDOH outcomes are associated with UA in the peer-reviewed literature, (2) which internal and external factors leaders perceive as driving UA organizational success or failure, and (3) which factors predict comparative organizational functioning across a national …

From Network Packets To Physical Consequences: Network-Level Spoofing And Loss Of Visibility In Industrial Control Systems, Lillian B. Beck

LSU Master's Theses

Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are the foundation of critical infrastructure as they provide resources like clean water, electricity, and natural gas to support our everyday functions. Given their essential role in modern society, the failure or compromise of ICS systems can lead to significant negative consequences and public safety impacts. Understanding how these systems can be targeted and exploited by malicious actors is necessary to improve their security and resilience.

This research examines how an attacker could manipulate a real-world ICS network by targeting a fully functional Natural Gas (NG) Compressor Station Platform that emulates real operations. This research led …

Identification Of Thruster Faults In Underwater Vehicles By Using Custom Encodings In Spiking Neural Networks, Donovan Gegg

LSU Master's Theses

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are untethered robotic platforms used for tasks such as seafloor mapping, infrastructure inspection, and environmental monitoring. Recent technological advances have produced smaller, more affordable platforms, broadening access to research teams and small companies alike. This miniaturization comes at the cost of them handling drawbacks associated with a more compact machine such as reduced battery capacity as well as limited processing and sensing capabilities. These constraints make small-sized marine vehicle’s reliability critical as they can cause malfunctions, making the loss of a vehicle more likely. Actuator faults are particularly consequential as unintended and unstable control in an …

Recovery And Validation Of Fragmented Rar Files Through The Scalpel3 Application, Thomas L. Landaiche Iii

LSU Master's Theses

A core component of filesystems includes an address table or other means of tracking metadata on where a given file resides within a disk image. This is crucial for regular operation of a computer, or disk analysis in digital forensics. When filesystem information is missing or corrupted, locating saved files on a disk becomes challenging. Whether the disk was accidentally wiped or intentionally tampered with, data still present on the disk, even while untracked, can possibly be recovered beyond what the filesystem registers. File carving in digital forensics is important for these scenarios when data recovery is necessary but address …

Polymer Microstructures For Advanced Biomanufacturing, Tongyao Wu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

With the continued growth of the biopharmaceutical industry, the demand for scalable, robust, and resource-efficient platforms for large-scale mammalian cell culture is amplified. Recent developments in microfluidic technology, such as precise control of the microenvironment, showed the potential to improve the performance of cell culture systems. However, constrained by scalability and operational efficiency, applying such approaches to large-scale cell culture and biopharmaceutical production presents challenges. This dissertation addresses these challenges through three independent but conceptually related technological developments. First, a roll-to-roll (R2R) fabrication process was developed for the scalable production of hollow microcarriers (HMCs). HMCs provide three-dimensional microenvironments suitable for …

Forbidden Induced Restrictions And Unavoidable Minors In Matroids, Matthew P. Mizell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Targets are matroids that arise from a nested sequence of flats in a projective geometry. This class of matroids was introduced by Nelson and Nomoto, who found the forbidden induced restrictions for binary targets. In this dissertation, their result is generalized to targets arising from projective geometries over $GF(q)$. In addition, targets arising from nested sequences of affine flats are introduced and the forbidden induced restrictions for these affine targets are determined.

In 1963, Halin and Jung proved that every simple graph with minimum degree at least four has $K_5$ or $K_{2,2,2}$ as a minor. Mills and Turner proved an …

Let It Ring! And A Red, Red, Rose: Transcriptions Of Brian Nabors’ Orchestral And Chamber Works For Wind Band, Lawrence Williams

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The goal of this project is to create a wind band transcription of the orchestral work “Let It Ring!” and chamber work “A Red, Red, Rose” by Brian Raphael Nabors. Nabors' music has been described as music that elicits joy and draws deeply from his roots in Birmingham, Alabama, and the rich cultural tapestry of Black musical traditions such as gospel, R&B/neo-soul, funk, and marching band culture. He describes himself as a “fuser of worlds” and “boundary destroyer,” intent on crafting a space where listeners can meet themselves, reflect on deeper questions of humanity, and feel grace.^[1] His compositional …

Transcription Factors Daf-16/Foxo And Hlh-30/Tfeb Form A Regulatory Axis To Control Tubular Lsysosomes Formation In C. Elegans, Cristian Ricaurte

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The development of therapies that can be applied in human health care to promote longer and healthier lives is one of the main goals of aging research. However, many of the interventions currently available have serious adverse effects that limit their translational potential. Thus, new strategies are urgently needed to promote healthy aging in humans. Here, we reveal a functional interaction between the insulin signaling pathway and mTOR pathway that promotes healthy aging in C. elegans via lysosomal tubulation. Their respective transcription factors, DAF-16/FOXO and HLH-30/TFEB cooperate, to drive the formation of tubular lysosomes (TLs) under various contexts, which contributes …

Quantifying And Integrating Community Hardship Into Two-Stage Stochastic Grid Reliability Optimization With Battery Storage, Fredrica Arthur

LSU Master's Theses

Traditional reliability planning for conventional distribution systems is largely utility-oriented, with a focus on collective system performance metrics like Expected Energy Not Supplied (EENS), where implicitly all unserved energy is considered of equal weight in terms of post-outage economic hardship. Yet, it is well understood that extended outage durations cause an uneven level of hardship to socioeconomically disadvantaged communities. This thesis proposes a community-informed reliability planning framework where the hardship caused by outages is explicitly considered in the battery energy storage system (BESS) location and sizing problem. First, a hardship-weighted Energy Not Supplied (WENS) measure is proposed, where income, education, …

Evaluating Eastern Wild Turkey (Meleagris Gallopavo Silvestris) Behavioral Ecology In The Southeastern United States, Chad Argabright

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo spp.) is a game bird species in North America who are one of the great success stories in restoration and conservation. Wild turkeys were extirpated from most of their range in the early 20th century, but through habitat restoration and translocation efforts the population was restored to the point of being sustainably harvested in 49 U.S. States by the late 20th century. However recent declines in wild turkey population indices have necessitated ongoing research on the behavioral ecology of wild turkeys to help counteract these declines. East Texas specifically for the past century has …

Time-Robust Evaluation For Multi-Dataset Intrusion Detection Reveals Temporal Shortcuts And Strong Baselines, Kyle A. Mccleary

LSU Master's Theses

Pooled multi-dataset benchmarks are an attractive way to evaluate intrusion detection systems (IDS) across heterogeneous public corpora, but they can quietly reward shortcut features tied to capture schedules and dataset identity. This work introduces TRACER, an auditable benchmark specification that standardizes seven public IDS corpora into a shared transaction-window prediction unit and a shared label ontology, enabling controlled comparisons between compact sequence backbones and strong tabular baselines under matched splits, training budgets, and scoring rules.

Under this protocol, absolute clock time is a strong shortcut under pooled random splits. Enforcing time-robust controls (timestamp rebasing, circular shifts, and schedule-token masking) reduces …

Biogeochemical Controls On Phosphorus Transport And Legacy Storage Across A Coastal Watershed, Lee Potter

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Excess phosphorus (P) loading is a key driver of eutrophication and harmful algal blooms (HABs) in aquatic systems worldwide. This relationship is of increasing concern in coastal Louisiana, where climate variability, altered hydrology, and land-use change converge, resulting in increased hydrologic and nutrient loading into coastal systems. This dissertation examines controls on P cycling in the Lake Pontchartrain Basin through a multi-scale framework linking estuarine processes, watershed loading, climate and weather patterns, and sediment dynamics. The dissertation begins with an overview of the study region, P dynamics, and changes in hydrology and nutrient loading patterns. Chapter 2 presents a spatial …

Écrire Pour Résister : La Littérature Francophone En Algérie Face Aux Enjeux Politiques Contemporains, Chiraz Amani

Department of French Studies Graduate Student Association Conference

Cette communication propose d’interroger le rôle de la littérature francophone en Algérie dans le contexte politique, social et mémoriel du XXIᵉ siècle, à travers l’analyse d’œuvres contemporaines de Hind Soyer, Kamel Daoud, Kaouther Adimi et Samir Toumi. À rebours des discours annonçant l’obsolescence des études littéraires, ces textes montrent que la littérature demeure un espace privilégié de réflexion critique, de résistance symbolique et de mise en récit des tensions qui traversent la société algérienne contemporaine.

Dans des genres variés — autofiction, roman historique, fiction politique ou récit mémoriel — ces auteurs interrogent les héritages de la colonisation, les impensés de …

Énumérer Pour Déjouer La Démémoration, Écrire Pour Pacifier Les Mémoires : Dans Le Ventre Du Congo De Blaise Ndala, Bilel Ben El Asker

Department of French Studies Graduate Student Association Conference

Il s’agit de montrer que Dans Le ventre du Congo de Blaise Ndala s’inscrit parfaitement dans le sillage de « la littérature remédiatrice »[1]. L’auteur congolais porte le fardeau d’un écrasant traumatisme collectif, celui de la disparition mystérieuse d’un groupe de congolais exhibés et présentés dans le cadre de l’exposition universelle de 1958, un traumatisme auquel il n’a pas assisté, puisqu’il a précédé sa naissance, mais qui resterait gravé dans sa mémoire. A travers la superposition de deux récits, celui de la tante disparue et celui de la nièce, l’auteur tâche de déjouer la démémoration, cet effacement …