Digital Commons Network^™

Learning To Interpret Fluid Type Phenomena Via Images, Simron Thapa

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Learning to interpret fluid-type phenomena via images is a long-standing challenging problem in computer vision. The problem becomes even more challenging when the fluid medium is highly dynamic and refractive due to its transparent nature. Here, we consider imaging through such refractive fluid media like water and air. For water, we design novel supervised learning-based algorithms to recover its 3D surface as well as the highly distorted underground patterns. For air, we design a state-of-the-art unsupervised learning algorithm to predict the distortion-free image given a short sequence of turbulent images. Specifically, we design a deep neural network that estimates the …

Indicators Of Senescence And Their Relationship With The Antioxidant Response Element In Ovarian Cancer Cells—Toward A More Encompassing View Of Enzyme Activity Levels In Cells, Shaniqua Analycia Hayes

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Enzymes and other related proteins are promising targets as biomarkers for cancer diagnostics, and it is therefore important to be able to quantify intracellular enzyme activity levels, not just presence of enzyme. Thus, there is a great need for the development of methods that offer spatiotemporal quantification of intracellular enzyme activity levels in respiring 2- and 3-dimensional cultures or their sample-processed variants. Previous studies have demonstrated that ß-gal is upregulated in senescence and in select ovarian cancers, and its expression/activity is upregulated when cells are under oxidative stress conditions. To that end, the primary goal of this work was to …

Probabilistic Rainfall Generator For Tropical Cyclones Affecting Louisiana, Gabriele Villarini, Wei Zhang, Paul Miller, David R. Johnson, Lauren E. Grimley, Hugh J. Roberts

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Devices And Methods For Deep Uv Laser Ablation, Kermit K. Murray, Fabrizio Donnarumma, Oluwaremilekun Lawai

College of Science Patents

Laser ablation devices and methods including laser ablation are provided. The ablation devices can include a deep UV laser. Dual-laser ablation devices are also provided. Biomolecules can be ablated using a combination of deep UV laser and nanoelectrospray, resulting in protonated sample molecules.

Ion-Dependent Dna Configuration In Bacteriophage Capsids, Pei Liu, Javier Arsuaga, M. Carme Calderer, Dmitry Golovaty, Mariel Vazquez, Shawn Walker

Faculty Publications

Bacteriophages densely pack their long double-stranded DNA genome inside a protein capsid. The conformation of the viral genome inside the capsid is consistent with a hexagonal liquid crystalline structure. Experiments have confirmed that the details of the hexagonal packing depend on the electrochemistry of the capsid and its environment. In this work, we propose a biophysical model that quantifies the relationship between DNA configurations inside bacteriophage capsids and the types and concentrations of ions present in a biological system. We introduce an expression for the free energy that combines the electrostatic energy with contributions from bending of individual segments of …

Characterization Of Application-Driven Sol-Gel Coated Meshes And Composites, Armaghan Naderi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Surface engineering is a multi-disciplinary research area that encompasses disciplines such as materials science, chemistry, mechanical engineering, and electrical engineering. Coating is a surface modification technique in surface engineering, applied on the surface of a substrate (i.e., bulk material), to cover/protect it from environmental degradation or to modify/improve surface properties for specific applications. This PhD research presents an in-depth investigation of sol-gel ceramic coatings to modify surface characteristics of bulk materials for two specific applications: 1) antistatic/antidust applications, and 2) biomaterial implant applications.

First, zirconia antistatic thin films on glass substrates, and their application to polymer-based composites, was studied. Zirconia …

Dirac-Born-Infeld Warm Inflation Realization In The Strong Dissipation Regime, Meysam Motaharfar, Rudnei O. Ramos

Faculty Publications

We consider warm inflation with a Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) kinetic term in which both the non-equilibrium dissipative particle production and the sound speed parameter slow the motion of the inflaton field. We find that a low sound speed parameter removes, or at least strongly suppresses, the growing function appearing in the scalar of curvature power spectrum of warm inflation, which appears due to the temperature dependence in the dissipation coefficient. As a consequence of that, a low sound speed helps to push warm inflation into the strong dissipation regime, which is an attractive regime from a model building and phenomenological perspective. …

Thunderstorms Producing Sferic-Geolocated Gamma-Ray Flashes Detected By Tetra-Ii, Deirdre Smith, Jill Trepanier, Samer T. Alnussirat, Michael L. Cherry, Marc D. Legault, Donald J. Pleshinger

Faculty Publications

The terrestrial gamma-ray flash (TGF) and Energetic Thunderstorm Rooftop Array (TETRA-II) detected 22 X-ray/gamma-ray flash events associated with lightning between October 2015 and March 2019 across three ground-based detector locations in subtropical and tropical climates in Louisiana, Puerto Rico, and Panama. Each detector array consists of a set of bismuth germanate scintillators that record X-ray and gamma-ray bursts over the energy range 50 keV–6 MeV (million electron volts). TETRA-II events have characteristics similar to both X-ray bursts associated with lightning leaders and TGFs: sub-millisecond duration, photons up to MeV energies, and association with nearby lightning (typically within 3 km). About …

Seed Treatment With Jasmonic Acid And Methyl Jasmonate Induces Resistance To Insects But Reduces Plant Growth And Yield In Rice, Oryza Sativa, Santhi Bhavanam, Michael Stout

Faculty Publications

When applied exogenously to plants, jasmonates [i.e., jasmonic acid (JA) and methyl jasmonate (MeJA)] increase plant resistance against herbivores, and their use in pest management has been suggested. For integration into pest management programs, the benefits of the resistance induced by jasmonates must outweigh the costs of jasmonates on plant growth and yield. A previous field study in rice found that seed treatment with MeJA reduced densities of the rice water weevil, Lissorhoptrus oryzophilus, but also reduced plant growth. Yields from MeJA plots were similar to yields from control plots. Because this study was conducted under field conditions with natural …

Partial Charge Transfer And Absence Of Induced Magnetization In Eus(111)/Bi2se3 Heterostructures, Damien Tristant, Ilya Vekhter, Vincent Meunier, William A. Shelton

Faculty Publications

Heterostructures made from topological and magnetic insulators promise to form excellent platforms for new electronic and spintronic functionalities mediated by interfacial effects. We report the results of a first-principles density functional theory study of the geometric, electronic structure, and magnetic properties of the EuS(111)/Bi2Se3 interface, including van der Waals and relativistic spin-orbit effects. In contrast to previous theoretical studies, we find no appreciable magnetic anisotropy in such a heterostructure. We also do not see additional induced magnetization at the interface or the magnetic proximity effect on the topological states. This is due to the localized nature of Eu moments and …

The Life And Scientific Work Of Hiroshi Kunita, Yasushi Ishikawa

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Construction Industry Training Assessment Framework, Hazem Jadallah, Carol J. Friedland, Isabelina Nahmens, Charles Pecquet, Charles Berryman, Yimin Zhu

Faculty Publications

The construction industry suffers from a lack of structured assessment methods to consistently gauge the efficacy of workforce training programs. To address this issue, this study presents a framework for construction industry training assessment that identifies established practices rooted in evaluation science and developed from a review of archival construction industry training literature. Inclusion criteria for the evaluated studies are: archival training studies focused on the construction industry workforce and integration of educational theory in training creation or implementation. Literature meeting these criteria are summarized and a case review is presented detailing assessment practices and results. The assessment practices are …

Daily Energy Expenditure Through The Human Life Course, Herman Pontzer, Yosuke Yamada, Hiroyuki Sagayama, Philip N. Ainslie, Lene F. Andersen, Liam J. Anderson, Lenore Arab, Issaad Baddou, Kweku Bedu-Addo, Ellen E. Blaak, Stephane Blanc, Alberto G. Bonomi, Carlijn V.C. Bouten, Pascal Bovet, Maciej S. Buchowski, Nancy F. Butte, Stefan G. Camps, Graeme L. Close, Jamie A. Cooper, Richard Cooper, Sai Krupa Das, Lara R. Dugas, Ulf Ekelund, Sonja Entringer, Terrence Forrester, Barry W. Fudge, Annelies H. Goris, Michael Gurven, Catherine Hambly, Asmaa El Hamdouchi, Marjije B. Hoos, Sumei Hu, Noorjehan Joonas

Faculty Publications

Total daily energy expenditure (“total expenditure”) reflects daily energy needs and is a critical variable in human health and physiology, but its trajectory over the life course is poorly studied. We analyzed a large, diverse database of total expenditure measured by the doubly labeled water method for males and females aged 8 days to 95 years. Total expenditure increased with fat-free mass in a power-law manner, with four distinct life stages. Fat-free mass-adjusted expenditure accelerates rapidly in neonates to ~50% above adult values at ~1 year; declines slowly to adult levels by ~20 years; remains stable in adulthood (20 to …

Direct Activation Of Light Alkanes To Value-Added Chemicals Using Supported Metal Oxide Catalysts, Md Ashraful Abedin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

One of the most challenging aspects of modern-day catalysis is the conversion of methane. Direct conversion of methane via dehydroaromatization (MDHA) is a well-known process which can produce valuable hydrocarbons. Mo oxide supported on ZSM-5/MCM-22 has been studied extensively in recent years for MDHA. Mo carbides are responsible for activating methane by forming CHx species. These are dimerized into C2Hy and oligomerized on ZSM-5/MCM-22 Brønsted acid sites to form aromatics. Sulfated zirconia (SZ) supported Mo catalyst contains the acid sites necessary to produce benzene in MDHA. Here, sulfated hafnia (SH), a homologous oxide like SZ, has been proposed to provide …

Cocrfeni High-Entropy Alloy As An Enhanced Hydrogen Evolution Catalyst In An Acidic Solution, Frank Mckay, Yuxin Fang, Orhan Kizilkaya, Prashant Singh, Duane D. Johnson, Amitava Roy, David P. Young, Phillip T. Sprunger, John C. Flake, William A. Shelton, Ye Xu

Faculty Publications

High-entropy alloys (HEAs) have intriguing material properties, but their potential as catalysts has not been widely explored. Based on a concise theoretical model, we predict that the surface of a quaternary HEA of base metals, CoCrFeNi, should go from being nearly fully oxidized except for pure Ni sites when exposed to O2 to being partially oxidized in an acidic solution under cathodic bias, and that such a partially oxidized surface should be more active for the electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in acidic solutions than all the component metals. These predictions are confirmed by electrochemical and surface science experiments: the …

Palynology And Paleoclimatology Of The Chicxulub Impact Crater In The Early Paleogene, Vann Smith

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

At the end of the Cretaceous Period, a large bolide impacted the Earth and formed the Chicxulub impact crater in the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. In 2016, International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 364 Site M0077 drilled into the buried peak ring of the crater, recovering a marine Paleocene to early Eocene post-impact section deposited on top of the impact breccia. Palynological analysis of 195 samples from the post-impact section has yielded the first pre-Holocene vegetational record from inside the Chicxulub impact crater and the first palynological record of the recovery of life following the end-Cretaceous mass extinction from inside the …

Graphdti: A Robust Deep Learning Predictor Of Drug-Target Interactions From Multiple Heterogeneous Data, G N. Liu, M Singha, L M. Pu, P Neupane, G N. Liu, H C. Wu, J Ramanujam, M Brylinski

Faculty Publications

Traditional techniqueset identification, we developed GraphDTI, a robust machine learning framework integrating the molecular-level information on drugs, proteins, and binding sites with the system-level information on gene expression and protein-protein interactions. In order to properly evaluate the performance of GraphDTI, we compiled a high-quality benchmarking dataset and devised a new cluster-based cross-validation p to identify macromolecular targets for drugs utilize solely the information on a query drug and a putative target. Nonetheless, the mechanisms of action of many drugs depend not only on their binding affinity toward a single protein, but also on the signal transduction through cascades of molecular …

Memories Of Professor Hiroshi Kunita, Ichiro Shigkeawa

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

On The Works Of Hiroshi Kunita In The Sixties, Masatoshi Fukushima

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Personal Memories Of Hiroshi Kunita, David Elworthy

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Preface, Shigeki Aida, David Applebaum, Yasushi Ishikawa, Arturo Kohatsu-Higa, Nicolas Privault

Journal of Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

An Assessment Of Government Capacity Building To Restrict The Marketing Of Unhealthy Food And Non-Alcoholic Beverage Products To Children In The Region Of The Americas, Sofía Rincón-Gallardo Patiño, Fabio Da Silva Gomes, Steven Constantinou, Robin Lemaire, Valisa E. Hedrick, Elena L. Serrano, Vivica I. Kraak

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Thermal Legacy Of A Large Paleolake In Taylor Valley, East Antarctica, As Evidenced By An Airborne Electromagnetic Survey, Krista F. Myers, Peter T. Doran, Slawek M. Tulaczyk, Neil T. Foley, Thue S. Bording, Esben Auken, Hilary A. Dugan, Jill A. Mikucki, Nikolaj Foged, Denys Grombacher, Ross A. Virginia

Faculty Publications

Previous studies of the lakes of the McMurdo Dry Valleys have attempted to constrain lake level history, and results suggest the lakes have undergone hundreds of meters of lake level change within the last 20ĝ€¯000 years. Past studies have utilized the interpretation of geologic deposits, lake chemistry, and ice sheet history to deduce lake level history; however a substantial amount of disagreement remains between the findings, indicating a need for further investigation using new techniques. This study utilizes a regional airborne resistivity survey to provide novel insight into the paleohydrology of the region. Mean resistivity maps revealed an extensive brine …

Soil Organic Matter Accretion, Complexity, And Degradation In Eroding Coastal Wetlands, Yadav Sapkota

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Coastal wetlands are one of the most productive ecosystems on the earth. They are increasingly recognized and valued for atmospheric carbon sequestration and storage for a long time. However, coastal wetlands acreage is shrinking, across the globe, due to several factors including sea-level rise, local subsidence, edge erosion, extreme weather events, and anthropogenic activities. The coastal wetlands in the Mississippi River Deltaic Plain experience high relative sea-level rise, limited sediment supply, and high marsh edge erosion, leading to substantial land loss. These wetlands require restoration and conservation to slown down land loss and continue providing ecosystem services. The coastal restoration …

Spatiotemporal Trends And Variability In The Centroid Of The Northern Hemisphere's Circumpolar Vortex, Nazla Bushra, Robert V. Rohli

Faculty Publications

Recent previous research has established the "sharpest gradient" approach to defining the circumpolar vortex and has identified correlations of the area and circularity of the Northern Hemisphere's circumpolar vortex (NHCPV) to important atmospheric-oceanic teleconnections. However, because geographical shifts in the NHCPV, independent of area or circularity changes, could affect surface environmental conditions, this research addresses the question of the extent to which the NHCPV centroid undergoes such shifts, both intra- and inter-annually. Results show that during the 1979-2017 period, the centroid has moved less on a daily basis in more recent years, perhaps indicative of a stabilization in circulation, with …

Analytical Determination Of Mitochondrial Function Of Excised Solid Tumor Homogenates, Elizabeth R.M. Zunica, Christopher L. Axelrod, L. Anne Gilmore, John P. Kirwan

Division of Basic Science Faculty Publications

Mitochondria are essential to the onset and progression of cancer through energy production, reactive oxygen species regulation, and macromolecule synthesis. Genetic and functional adaptations of mitochondria to the tumor environment drive proliferative and metastatic potential. The advent of DNA and RNA sequencing removed critical barriers to the evaluation of genetic mediators of tumorigenesis. However, to date, methodological approaches to evaluate tumor mitochondrial function remain elusive and require technical proficiency limiting the feasibility, ultimately diminishing diagnostic and prognostic value in both experimental and clinical settings. Here, we outline a simple and rapid method to quantify rates of oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) and …

Initial Weight Change And Long-Term Changes In Weight And Compensation During Supervised Exercise Training, James L. Dorling, Christoph Höchsmann, S. Nicole Fearnbach, John W. Apolzan, Daniel S. Hsia, Neil M. Johannsen, Tim I.M.S. Church, Corby K. Martin

Clinical Research Faculty Publications

Introduction Our primary aim was to investigate the association between initial weight change and longer-term changes in weight and compensation (predicted weight loss-observed weight loss) during exercise. As secondary aims, we investigated if initial weight change was related to change in cardiometabolic risk markers and energy balance modulators. Methods Two 6-month randomized controlled exercise trials conducted in individuals with overweight or obesity were analyzed (study 1, n = 312; study 2, n = 102). In both studies, participants in an exercise condition (4 kcal·kg-1·wk-1 [KKW], 8 KKW, 12 KKW, or 20 KKW) were split into tertiles based on percent weight …

Resource Theory Of Unextendibility And Nonasymptotic Quantum Capacity (), Eneet Kaur, Siddhartha Das, Mark M. Wilde, Andreas Winter

Faculty Publications

In this paper, we introduce the resource theory of unextendibility as a relaxation of the resource theory of entanglement. The free states in this resource theory are the -extendible states, associated with the inability to extend quantum entanglement in a given quantum state to multiple parties. The free channels are -extendible channels, which preserve the class of -extendible states. We define several quantifiers of unextendibility by means of generalized divergences and establish their properties. By utilizing this resource theory, we obtain nonasymptotic upper bounds on the rate at which quantum communication or entanglement preservation is possible over a finite number …

Symmetric Distinguishability As A Quantum Resource, Robert Salzmann, Nilanjana Datta, Gilad Gour, Xin Wang, Mark M. Wilde

Faculty Publications

We develop a resource theory of symmetric distinguishability, the fundamental objects of which are elementary quantum information sources, i.e. sources that emit one of two possible quantum states with given prior probabilities. Such a source can be represented by a classical-quantum state of a composite system XA, corresponding to an ensemble of two quantum states, with X being classical and A being quantum.We study the resource theory for two different classes of free operations: (i)CPTPA, which consists of quantum channels acting only on A, and (ii) conditional doubly stochastic maps acting on XA.We introduce the notion of symmetric distinguishability of …

Effectiveness Of Softening Agents For Enhancing Properties Of Asphalt Mixes With High Rap Contents, Zahid Hossain, Ashraf Elsayed, Sumon Roy

Data

A high percentage of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) in new asphalt concrete can lead to developing premature failure of asphalt pavements due to fatigue or low-temperature cracking. The use of softening agents in asphalt binders can resolve these problems. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of softening agents for enhancing the properties of asphalt mixes with high RAP contents. Two waste products, namely, waste cooking oil (WCO), and engine bottom oil (EBO) along with a commercially produced rejuvenator were investigated in this study. The following three types of Performance Grade (PG) binders, each collected from two …