Digital Commons Network^™

Assessing Social Vulnerability To Flood Hazards In The Dutch Province Of Zeeland, Ryan H. Kirby, Margaret A. Reams, Nina S.N. Lam, Lei Zou, Gerben G.J. Dekker, D. Q.P. Fundter

Faculty Publications

The 2007 European Union Floods Directive encouraged member nations to pursue a more integrated view of flood risks and management strategies, taking into account social vulnerabilities of residents. To date, most flood-risk analyses conducted by the Dutch government have focused on physical risk. This study utilizes fine-scale data to construct a social vulnerability index for 147 districts of the Dutch province of Zeeland, located in the Southwestern Delta and the scene of widespread devastation following the 1953 North Sea Flood. Factor analysis of 25 indicators of social vulnerability selected from related research in Europe and the United States results in …

Ground-State Shape Evolution In Er And Yb Isotopes, Xin Guan, Haichao Zhao, Feng Pan, Jerry P. Draayer

Faculty Publications

The ground-state shape (phase) evolution in Er and Yb isotopes is manifested in the axially deformed Nilsson mean-field plus extended pairing model. The energy ratio R 0 2 ⁺ /2 1 ⁺ , the odd-even mass differences, the ground-state occupation probabilities of valence nucleon pairs with different angular momenta and the information entropy are calculated. It is shown from these quantities as functions of the quadrupole deformation parameter and the overall pairing interaction strength that the ground-state shape (phase) evolution is mainly driven by the pairing interaction and less affected by the quadrupole deformation, which thus provides a possible origin …

Maize Responsiveness To Azospirillum Brasilense: Insights Into Genetic Control, Heterosis And Genomic Prediction, Miriam Suzane Vidotti, Filipe Inácio Matias, Filipe Couto Alves, Paulino Pérez Rodríguez, Gregório Alvarado Beltran, Juan Burguenõ, José Crossa, Roberto Fritsche-Neto

Faculty Publications

Several studies have shown differences in the abilities of maize genotypes to facilitate or impede Azospirillum brasilense colonization and to receive benefits from this association. Hence, our aim was to study the genetic control, heterosis effect and the prediction accuracy of the shoot and root traits of maize in response to A. brasilense. For that, we evaluated 118 hybrids under two contrasting scenarios: I) N stress (control) and ii) N stress plus A. brasilense inoculation. The diallel analyses were performed using mixed model equations, and the genomic prediction models accounted for the general and specific combining ability (GCA and SCA, …

Smoothing Parameters For Recursive Kernel Density Estimators Under Censoring, Yousri Slaoui

Communications on Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Strong Convergence Rate In Averaging Principle For The Heat Equation Driven By A General Stochastic Measure, Vadym Radchenko

Communications on Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Review Of Song For The Unraveling Of The World, Michael F. Russo

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Grain-Size Affected Mechanical Response And Deformation Behavior In Microscale Reverse Extrusion, Bin Zhang, Mohammad Dodaran, Shahrior Ahmed, Shuai Shao, W. J. Meng, K. J. Juul, K. L. Nielsen

Faculty Publications

The continuing demand on device miniaturization has motivated the interest in micro metal forming technologies for manufacturing metal parts with sub-mm characteristic dimensions. In this work, axisymmetric reverse extrusion experiments were conducted on Cu 110 and Al 1100 alloy rod specimens with widely varying initial grain sizes, achieved through equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) and post annealing. Accompanying crystal plasticity finite element (CPFE) simulations were carried out. At a characteristic extrusion dimension (CED) of ∼100 µm, defined by the sidewall thickness of the extruded cup-shaped structures, the deformation characteristics of the reverse extrusion process were investigated. Specifically, the characteristic plastic …

Combined Molecular Dynamics And Phase Field Simulation Investigations Of Crystal-Melt Interfacial Properties And Dendritic Solidification Of Highly Undercooled Titanium, Sepideh Kavousi, Brian R. Novak, Mohsen Asle Zaeem, Dorel Moldovan

Faculty Publications

The effects of kinetic and capillary anisotropies on crystal morphology and growth rate during solidification of titanium are studied using atomistically-informed phase field simulations. Molecular dynamics (MD) is employed to calculate the anisotropic kinetic coefficient and crystal-melt interface free energy using the free solidification and capillary methods. The phase field simulation results for solidification velocity and interface temperature are in quantitative good agreement with experimental and analytical data for undercoolings below 150 K. As the role of interface kinetic effects increases with undercooling the use of a modified phase field model allowed the extension of its quantitative prediction capability to …

Energetic, Structural And Mechanical Properties Of Terraced Interfaces, M. Dodaran, J. Wang, Y. Chen, W. J. Meng, S. Shao

Faculty Publications

Taking the well-understood Cu-Ni {111} semi-coherent interface as a prototype, we demonstrate an important, yet long-been-overlooked, size effect on the properties of terraced interfaces — i.e. the facet length scale effect. Interfacial facets are considered as super interface disconnections (SIDs). We then studied the SID's size effect on the energy, structure, and mechanical response of terraced interfaces by using atomistic simulations and defect theories. We found that the specific facet energy — therefore the specific energy of the terraced interface — exhibits a periodic change with the SID's size. The periodic change is associated with the quantized transitions in their …

Current Status And Recommendations Toward A Virus Standard For Ballast Water, Yiseul Kim, Samuel D. Snow, Vanessa Reichel-Deland, Mostafa Maghsoodi, Gabrielle M. Langlois, Volodymyr V. Tarabara, Joan B. Rose

Faculty Publications

Ballast water contains and transfers a variety of biological and non-biological materials between biomes. This study aimed to summarize published literature on the viruses found in ballast water, to evaluate ultrafiltration and plaque assay as methods for concentrating and enumerating viruses, and to assess the efficacy of UV irradiation in the inactivation of infectious viruses in ballast water. Previous studies reported high virus concentrations in ballast tanks, ranging from 109 to 1014 viral particles/L. The ultrafiltration and plaque assay were efficient in concentrating and enumerating four types of phages: MS2, PhiX174, P22, and PP7. The UV dose (radiant fluence) necessary …

Fairness-Aware Energy-Efficient Resource Allocation In D2d Communication Networks, Shengjie Guo, Xiangwei Zhou, Sa Xiao, Mingxuan Sun

Faculty Publications

In this paper, the energy efficiency in a cellular network with device-to-device communications is studied from user fairness perspective. A mixed-integer max-min optimization problem is formulated, in which both mode selection and resource allocation are considered. Since the optimal solution requires exhaustive search, which is NP-hard, two suboptimal methods are derived. First, a Lagrangian decomposition-based method is proposed to jointly solve subcarrier assignment and power allocation with integer constraint relaxation under different modes. To further reduce the computational complexity, a low-complexity decomposition (LCD) method is derived. A novel mode selection scheme, a subcarrier assignment scheme, a power allocation scheme, and …

Predicting Climate Types For The Continental United States Using Unsupervised Clustering Techniques, D. Sathiaraj, X. Huang, J. Chen

Faculty Publications

The problem of clustering climate data observation sites and grouping them by their climate types is considered. Machine learning–based clustering algorithms are used in analyzing climate data time series from more than 3,000 climate observation sites in the United States, with the objective of classifying climate type for regions across the United States. Understanding the climate type of a region has applications in public health, environment, actuarial science, insurance, agriculture, and engineering. In this study, daily climate data measurements for temperature and precipitation from the time period 1946–2015 have been used. The daily data observations were grouped into three derived …

Optimizing N-Tier Application Scalability In The Cloud: A Study Of Soft Resource Allocation, Qingyang Wang, Shungeng Zhang, Yasuhiko Kanemasa, Calton Pu, Balaji Palanisamy, Lilian Harada, Motoyuki Kawaba

Faculty Publications

An effective cloud computing environment requires both good performance and high efficiency of computing resources. Through extensive experiments using a representative n-tier benchmark application (Rice University Bulletin Board System (RUBBoS)), we show that the soft resource allocation (e.g., thread pool size and database connection pool size) in component servers has a significant impact on the overall system performance, especially at high system utilization scenarios. Concretely, the same software resource allocation can be a good setting in one hardware configuration and then becomes an either under-or over-allocation in a slightly different hardware configuration, causing a significant performance drop. We have also …

Characterizing Location-Based Mobile Tracking In Mobile Ad Networks, Boyang Hu, Qicheng Lin, Yao Zheng, Qiben Yan, Matthew Troglia, Qingyang Wang

Faculty Publications

Mobile apps nowadays are often packaged with third-party ad libraries to monetize user data. Many mobile ad networks exploit these mobile apps to extract sensitive real-Time geographical data about the users for location-based targeted advertising. However, the massive collection of sensitive information by the ad networks has raised serious privacy concerns. Unfortunately, the extent and granularity of private data collection of the location-based ad networks remain obscure. In this work, we present a mobile tracking measurement study to characterize the severity and significance of location-based private data collection in mobile ad networks, by using an automated fine-grained data collection instrument …

Pore-Scale Modeling Of Nanoparticle Transport And Retention In Real Porous Materials, Paula C. Sanematsu, Karsten E. Thompson, Clinton S. Willson

Faculty Publications

Modern pore-scale modeling has the ability to simulate flow and particle (i.e., colloids, nanoparticles) transport at the pore- and particle-scale in realistic porous media. The pore structure of a material can be obtained through x-ray micro tomography (XCT) or a similar three-dimensional imaging technique. From these data sets, fluid and particle transport can be simulated by direct numerical simulation of the fundamental equations of motion. In this paper, we employ the finite element method to simulate Stokes flow and, after the flow field is resolved, Lagrangian particle tracking to track the fate and transport of nanoparticles (NPs). The presented methodology …

Geological And Production Uncertainty Assessments Of The Cyclic Co 2 -Assisted Gravity Drainage Eor Process: A Case Study From South Rumaila Oil Field, Watheq J. Al-Mudhafar, Dandina N. Rao, Sanjay Srinivasan

Faculty Publications

Risk or uncertainty assessment in the reservoir flow modeling, especially in real field-scale evaluation, is essential to make a trustful decision regarding the future development plans. This paper presents an efficient uncertainty assessment workflow of geological and production data through the cyclic CO 2 -assisted gravity drainage (GAGD) process in South Rumaila oil field in Southern Iraq. First, the sequential Gaussian simulation created a large number of reservoir stochastic realizations that capture the entire geological uncertainty space. Second, ranking was applied to select the quartiles (P 10 , P 20 , … , P 90) of reservoir permeability and anisotropy …

The Use Of Geospatial Modeling And Novel Diagnostics To Detect And Map Risk Factors Of Soil-Transmitted Helminths In Feira De Santana, Brazil, Ryan Harry Avery

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections impact billions of people worldwide. The traditional STH control approach is a morbidity control strategy implementing mass drug administration (MDA) programs targeting school-aged children (SAC). In Brazil, this control strategy has decreased STH prevalence to less than 20% in most of the country and providing an opportunity to transition from the morbidity control program and towards a surveillance and response system geared towards STH elimination. Surveillance and response systems geared towards elimination require the implementation higher accuracy diagnostics to detect infection in low-transmission communities, surveillance of entire households, high-resolution modeling at the household-habitat scale, and targeted …

Sodium Reduction Through Salt Substitute Mixtures, Visual Cues, And Salt Level Statements, And Its Effects On Consumer Perception: A Case Of Barbecue Sauce, Jose Ramon Alonso Marenco

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading causes of death in the USA and associated with excessive sodium (Na) intake. Thus, reducing the Na intake is vital to alleviate health concerns. One serving of the average Barbecue sauce (BBQs) may contribute around 15%-20% of the daily Na allowance (2,300 mg). No research has evaluated salt substitutes or visual cues on salty taste perception of BBQs, thus it was the aim of this research. Consumer studies followed a Balanced Incomplete Block (BIB) designs. For Study I, BBQs prototypes followed a 3-components (NaCl : KCl : Glycine) mixture design, with 38% - 87% less …

Essays On Bank Deposit Flows And Deposit Rates As A Market Disciplining Mechanism, Prateek Sharma

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Deposits are the single largest source of funding for banks and are thus key to the stability of the banking system. Deposit flows and deposit rates are two mechanisms through which depositors discipline banks from excessive risk taking thus keeping the banking system stable.

In Chapter 1, I examine aggregate deposit inflows, outflows, and the reallocation of deposits in the banking system to further our understanding of banking stability. I find that on average deposit inflows are nearly three times larger and twice more volatile than outflows. Deposit flows vary with business cycles and market conditions, across deposit types, and …

Effects Of U.S. Financial Regulations On Labor Markets, Anindo U. Sarker

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis is based on a collection of three essays which study the effects of financial policy on labor markets. The first two essays investigate the effects of U.S. bank branching deregulation on labor markets. The first essay studies how these regulations impacted wages and working hours of traditional payroll workers. The second essay studies the impact of these policy reforms on the occupational choice to engage in self-employed work. The main finding of this set of studies is credit access has real effects on the workforce. Estimates from the econometric analysis used in this study suggest that credit access …

Classical Axisymmetric Gravity In Real Ashtekar Variables, Rodolfo Gambini, Esteban Mato, Javier Olmedo, Jorge Pullin

Faculty Publications

We formulate axisymmetric general relativity in terms of real Ashtekar-Barbero variables. We study the constraints and equations of motion and show how the Kerr, Schwarzschild and Minkowski solutions arise. We also discuss boundary conditions. This opens the possibility of a midisuperspace quantization using loop quantum gravity techniques for spacetimes with axial symmetry and time dependence.

Long-Term Dust Formation By Core Collapse Supernovae, Kelsie Marie Krafton

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Studying long-term dust formation by CCSNe is an important step toward understanding the large dust masses found in early galaxies. The amazing new discovery of approximately a solar mass of cold dust in the ejecta of SN 1987A has caused a complete re-evaluation of dust formation in core collapse supernovae (CCSNe). CCSNe form only a small amount of dust after three years, but SN 1987A has a dust mass that is several orders of magnitude larger after 25 years. A recent study of SN 2010jl by Gall et al. (2014) made the fascinating suggestion that dust is continuously forming in …

Computational Feasibility Of Simulating Whole-Organ Vascular Networks And Their Response To Injury, William Patrick Donahue

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Healthy vasculature is critical to sustaining the function of normal tissues in the human body. Radiation therapy for cancer causes injury of the vasculature of non-cancerous tissues. These changes have been associated with potentially deadly conditions such as necrosis of the brain tissue. There are currently no computational methods to study the effects of radiation vascular injury in whole-organ vasculatures because of the large number of vessels involved. The goal of this work was to test the feasibility of simulating radiation damage to whole-brain vascular networks and calculate the resulting change in blood flow. To accomplish this, we developed algorithms …

“I Need To Believe That Something Extraordinary Is Possible”: Effects Of Transcendent Media Experiences On The Destigmatization Of Mental Illness, Stephanie Whitenack

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Entertainment psychology is moving toward an area of study where being entertained means experiencing pleasure and/or satisfying fundamental, meaningful needs as human beings (Vorderer, 2011). Now, scholars are examining meaningful media experiences and a recent subset known as transcendent media experiences. Transcendent media experiences are defined as experiences that elicit mixed affective states that can heighten feelings of elevation, compassion, and connectedness that lead to more prosocial motivations. These subjective experiences of meaningfulness can inspire universality by cultivating desires to overcome intergroup hostility (Oliver et al., 2018).

Much is known about the cognitive processes that contribute to lessening social distance …

Essays On Interplay Between Economics And Culture, Ishita Tripathi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation constitutes of two distinct essays on the influence of terrorism on individual perception and belief formation. In the first study, using micro-level data from 32 European countries, we find that an increase in terrorist activities by foreign perpetrators instigates negative sentiments towards immigrants. But the intensity of this adverse impact of terrorism decreases with time. Additionally, our analysis reveals that the effect of terrorism varies across individuals depending on various socio-economic attributes. Terrorism has a stronger negative influence on the residents, if their own country hosts relatively larger number of migrants. Individuals are not affected by terrorist attacks …

Scintillation Event Localization In Novel Hemi-Ellipsoid Detector For Spect, Hanif R. Soysal

LSU Master's Theses

A high sensitivity Cardiac SPECT system using hemi-ellipsoid crystals with pinhole collimation was previously proposed by Dey et al. To investigate detector resolution for this design, the scintillation light spread on a monolithic hemi-ellipsoidal CsI crystal was simulated using Geant4 Monte Carlo. The expected distribution of scintillation light on the outer surface of the crystal from photoelectric absorption events was obtained from the simulations for selected points inside the crystal. Two sets of simulations were performed. For the first set, a look-up table (LUT) of 12 points was created and each point mapped to its expected light distribution—four points at …

The Jeffersonian Huey Long: The Rise Of Southern Socialism, Ali Katherine Nabours

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation argues that there existed in the South between the 1890s and World War II a leftist dissenting tradition which frequently included or had a good deal in common with Socialism. Southern Socialism, broadly defined as a shared set of leftist values among a diverse population, was unique to the region because it was a native-born movement established in response to the region’s unique social, labor, and economic conditions. Huey Long capitalized on this tradition in his rise to power. He went after the voters that political machines and large interests ignored. He echoed the complaints poor Southerners had …

Analysis And Utilization Of Hip-Hop Techniques In Classical Music, William Francis Montgomery

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT

As of January 4^th, 2018, R&B/Hip-Hop (including rap) had overtaken rock and roll as the most popular genre among music fans. Nielsen Music reported that rap had surpassed rock in terms of total consumption with rappers such as Drake and Kendrick Lamar leading the charge. This would lead to the second-highest growth of any genre of music, spiking at 25% over the previous year.[1] This came as a very big surprise to many, especially when we take into consideration the rocky at best relationship that rap has had with public perception.

There are many misconceptions and …

Time In Giorgio De Chirico's Metaphysical Paintings, Ge Chen

LSU Master's Theses

Abstract

A subtle transformation in the fundamental cognition of a generation could trigger overwhelming ripples throughout the society. Time as an essential concept went through tempestuous changes in late nineteenth-century Europe because of the revolutionary development in railway system. Art world in cross-century Europe also witnessed unprecedented upheavals. Founder of Metaphysical Painting, Giorgio de Chirico was born to that age and was renowned for his complicated opinion towards modernism. This thesis intends to present how the change in the basic perception of time permeated the society, influenced ways of production, inspired art movements, and got reflected in art works.

Railway …

Determination Of Scatter Fractions, Albedos, And Tenth Value Layers For Shielding Of Synchrotron Beamline Hutches, Bethany Lynn Broekhoven

LSU Master's Theses

Synchrotron facilities require substantial amounts of shielding to protect facility staff and researchers. To meet mandatory exposure limits, the traditional combination of time, distance, and shielding of the radiation source are utilized. Because of continuous 24-7 operation of most synchrotrons, time is the least useful tool. The experimental stations for synchrotron x-ray beamlines, called hutches, enforce a minimum distance from the source, but shielding provided by hutch walls is still the principal tool for a synchrotron facility. Currently there is no single resource for synchrotron beamline hutch shielding design in the literature; most hutch shielding is designed through either over-simplified …