Improved Iterative Truncated Arithmetic Mean Filter, Prathyusha Surampudi Venkata

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses image processing and filtering techniques with emphasis on Mean filter, Median filter, and different versions of the Iterative Truncated Arithmetic Mean (ITM) filter. Specifically, we review in detail the ITM algorithms (ITM1 and ITM2) proposed by Xudong Jiang. Although filtering is capable of reducing noise in an image, it usually also results in smoothening or some other form of distortion of image edges and file details. Therefore, maintaining a proper trade off between noise reduction and edge/detail distortion is key. In this thesis, an improvement over Xudong Jiang’s ITM filters, namely ITM3, has been proposed and tested …

Realism Revisited: An Exploration Of Ibsen's A Doll's House And Hedda Gabler In Contemporary Contexts, Kristin E. Shoffner

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The following thesis is an exploration in creating TheatreUNO’s production of A Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler. The goal of directing the production of A Doll’s House and in performance of Hedda Gabler in repertory was to walk the fine line of honoring the original intentions of the playwright while simultaneously making the performances accessible to a contemporary audience. This thesis will include an in-depth look at the process of both productions, analysis, research and production materials. A Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler ran in repertory at The University of New Orleans April 12-28 2018.

Hydrodynamics Of An Anguilliform Swimming Motion Using Morison’S Equation, Naga Sasi Devarakonda

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In this study, the hydrodynamic performance of anguilliform swimming motion is computed using Morison’s equation. This method was shown to predict the servo motor torques well. The anguilliform swimming motion is sinusoidal with increasing amplitude from head to tail. A “wakeless” swimming motion proposed by Vorus and Taravella (2011) with zero net circulation is considered.

This method is compared to the existing slender body theory and is validated with reference to the experimental results of NEELBOT-1.1 (Potts, 2015). The results for the study indicates that self-propulsion speed of the motion is independent of the oscillating tail amplitude at a constant …

South Broadway: A Qualitative Analysis Of Legal Marijuana And Place In A Denver Commercial District, Nicholas T. Van De Voorde

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The economic impact of legalized marijuana has been massive, but does legal marijuana have the impact to create new types of urban spaces? The legalization of formerly illicit vices has created urban spaces thematically constructed around vice, such as The Strip in Las Vegas (gambling) or The Wallen in Amsterdam (prostitution). This paper suggests that legalized marijuana similarly has the potential to construct vice-themed urban spaces in a post-industrial economic paradigm defined by consumption. Using Denver’s South Broadway (an urban area that has been rebranded as “The Green Mile” due to the outgrowth of marijuana businesses in the area) as …

Parental Stress, Anxiety, And Depression And Child Emotional Intelligence In Children With 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome, Megan A. Goldfarb

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Children with chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS) have serious medical, psychological, and behavioral symptoms that are stressful to their parents. Higher general intelligence quotients (IQ) and emotional intelligence (EI) in children could allay parental stress. Self-reported stress, anxiety, and depression were measured in parents of children with 22q11.2DS (n=42) and a healthy control group (n=20) in relation to children’s IQ and EI. Children with 22q1.2DS had lower IQ and EI scores. Parental groups did not differ in their reported stress, anxiety, or depression. Children’s IQ and EI levels did not relate to parental measures of affect even in the 22q11.2DS …

Platinum@Hexaniobate Nanopeapods: Sensitized Composite Architectures For Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution Under Visible Light Irradiation, Clare Davis-Wheeler Chin

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Hydrogen fuel is one of the most important areas of research in the field of renewable energy development and production. Hydrogen gas can be generated by fuel cells, water electrolyzers, and heterogeneous nanoscale catalysts. It can be burned to directly release chemical energy or condensed for storage and transport, providing fuel for combustion devices or storing excess energy generated by renewable sources such as wind turbines and concentrated solar power assemblies. While platinum is the most active catalyst for hydrogen reduction, its high cost significantly deters its utilization in advanced photocatalytic materials. One approach to mitigating this expense is optimizing …

Coupled Barrier Island Shoreline And Shoreface Dynamics, Benjamin S. Beasley

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In Louisiana, barrier islands are undergoing morphological change driven by high rates of relative sea-level rise and interior wetland loss. Previous works utilized historical region-scale bathymetry and shoreline change analyses to assess coastal evolution. However, more localized assessments considering the role of sediment transport processes in regional evolution are lacking. This is essential to predicting coastal change trajectories and allocating limited sand resources for nourishment. Using bathymetric and shoreline data, 100-m spaced shore-normal transects were created to track meter-scale elevation change for 1880s, 1930s, 1980s, 2006, and 2015. An automated framework was used to quantify and track parameters such as …

Three Dimensional Passive Localization For Single Path Arrival With Unknown Starting Conditions, Britt Aguda

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Introduced in this paper is the time difference of arrival (TDoA) conic approximation method (TCAM), a technique for passive localization in three dimensions with unknown starting conditions. The TDoA of a mutually detected signal across pairs of detectors is used to calculate the relative angle between the signal source and the center point of the separation between the detectors in the pair. The relative angle is calculated from the TDoA using a mathematical model called the TDoA approximation of the zenith angle (TAZA). The TAZA angle defines the opening angle of a conic region of probability that contains the signal …

Analysis Of Temperature And Salinity Effects On Growth And Mortality Of Oysters (Crassostrea Virginica) In Louisiana, Troy Sehlinger

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Salinity (S) and temperature (T) control every facet of the eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) life cycle, principally reproduction, development, growth, and mortality. Previous studies conducted in in the Breton Sound (BR) and Barataria (BA) estuaries have reported differences in growth and mortality rates between the basins. In the present study, environmental conditions were synchronized to compare growth and mortality rates between basins at similar combinations of T and S. Results indicate that when T and S are the same (synchronized), seasonal oyster growth and mortality rates differ between BR and BA. Seasonal analyses revealed that as salinities increased …

Story & Style: Pursuing Excellence On The Academic Stage, Ryan M. Decker

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The following thesis is a brief view of the 2017-2018 production of Marco Ramirez’s contemporary play The Royale, as produced by Theatre UNO, the theatre production arm of the University of New Orleans’ Department of Film & Theatre. This thesis will include initial responses, analysis, interpretation, production synthesis and communication, and reflection with conclusions on performance, directing, and pedagogy in academic theatre. This thesis is supported by documentation of the production process, including a scored script. The play was performed in New Orleans, Louisiana at the University of New Orleans Performing Arts Center’s Robert E. Nims Theatre, November 9-19, …

Visual Pleasure And Racial Ambiguity, Ruth M. Owens Md

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

I struggle to present work that reflects a psychological expressivity which at the same time conveys intellectual concepts that are of concern to me. It seems that the fluidity of an image can communicate a certain pathos, and correspond to the fluid nature of one’s identity. Drippy paint, distorted bodies, and vertiginous video clips can give an indication about what a body feels like from within. Depictions of these bodily feelings help to communicate ideas about what it means to be alive in general, and a mixed race woman, in particular.

A Longitudinal Examination Of The Association Between Contextual Stress, Parenting, And School Readiness, Jessica M. Grande

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Contextual stress has been associated with poor school readiness skills during early childhood. This study evaluated mechanisms by which parent’s exposure to poverty-related contextual stressors influence the acquisition of school readiness skills from child age 2 to 4 among 167 parent-child dyads. Parent report of contextual stress and observational measures of parenting quality were collected during the children’s 2-year-old assessment. Teacher reports and children’s scores on school readiness tasks were collected during the 4-year-old assessment. Two approaches were used to understand the process by which contextual stressors influences school readiness; the accumulation of stressors approach and the constellations of stressors …

To Forgive Or Not To Forgive? A Reappraisal Of Vietnam War Evaders And Deserters In President Gerald Ford's Clemency Program, Courtney Carver

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In 1974, President Ford began the arduous task of healing the wounds sustained by the United States during the Vietnam War. His controversial clemency plan gave those who had either deserted the military or those who evaded the draft the chance to earn their way back into American society. President Ford was willing to face this opposition to move the country closer to resolving an issue that was tearing the nation apart. In the applications to Ford’s Presidential Clemency Board, thousands of deserters and evaders reveal their motivations, and in doing so present a large body of evidence that contradicts …

Manana: A Generalized Heuristic Scoring Approach For Concept Map Analysis As Applied To Cybersecurity Education, Sharon Elizabeth Blake Gatto

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Concept Maps (CMs) are considered a well-known pedagogy technique in creating curriculum, educating, teaching, and learning. Determining comprehension of concepts result from comparisons of candidate CMs against a master CM, and evaluate "goodness". Past techniques for comparing CMs have revolved around the creation of a subjective rubric. We propose a novel CM scoring scheme called MAnanA based on a Fuzzy Similarity Scaling (FSS) score to vastly remove the subjectivity of the rubrics in the process of grading a CM. We evaluate our framework against a predefined rubric and test it with CM data collected from the Introduction to …

Zooplankton Community Composition In Natural And Artificial Estuarine Passes Of Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana, Arnaud Kerisit

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

I assessed the composition of zooplankton communities at the three tidal inlets connecting Lake Pontchartrain to Lake Borgne and subsequently to the Gulf of Mexico. The objectives of my research were to better understand the factors contributing to both spatial and temporal differences in zooplankton communities at the three locations. Monthly samplings of the neuston were conducted from September 2009 until April 2011 and then again from September 2012 until May 2013. Sampling consisted of triplicate tows using SeaGear “Bongo” nets. Water quality data along with water turbidity were recorded at each site and during each sampling effort. All specimens …

Reading Alice Dunbar-Nelson Through The Eyes Of A Creole, Patrice E. Jones

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Abstract Over the last fifty years scholars have worked to recover the work of late nineteenth, early twentieth-century writer Alice Dunbar-Nelson. Many scholars have acknowledged the impact of New Orleans culture and history in her writing as well as attempted peel back the layers of her stories in order to understand her commentary on structures of race, class, and gender in nineteenth-century New Orleans. This hybrid paper, both creative and academic, subjective and objective, is a reading of her work through the Creole lens. Reading Alice Dunbar-Nelson through a Creole lens illuminates the radical nature of her work which has …

The Everyday Universe, Ashley W. Hope

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

I take inspiration from ordinary objects and materials. Through photography, I attempt to transcend the familiar to discover complexity within the bits and pieces of my everyday life. Like other artistic representations, a photograph is a singular portrayal, not an actualization of physical reality. My artistic exploration of this involves incorporating elements of abstraction to point to the truth that all photographs are, by nature, an abstraction of our physical reality based on perspective. The resulting images often share a quality of impermanence, counterbalanced by the act of making a photographic document. By evoking this temporal quality of photography and …

Genetic Diversity In An Invasive Clonal Plant? A Historical And Contemporary Perspective, Elliot D. Weidow

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Introduced populations of Eichhornia crassipes (Pontederiaceae) possess extremely low levels of genetic diversity due to severe bottleneck events and clonal reproduction. While populations elsewhere have been well studied, North American populations of E. crassipes remain understudied. We used Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism markers to assess genetic diversity and population structure in North American E. crassipes populations. Patterns of diversity over the past fifty years were analyzed using herbarium specimens. Furthermore, we sampled populations across the Gulf Coast of the United States throughout a year to determine contemporary genetic diversity and assess potential seasonal effects. Genetic diversity was found to be …

Assessing Apache Spark Streaming With Scientific Data, Janak Dahal

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Processing real-world data requires the ability to analyze data in real-time. Data processing engines like Hadoop come short when results are needed on the fly. Apache Spark's streaming library is increasingly becoming a popular choice as it can stream and analyze a significant amount of data. To showcase and assess the ability of Spark various metrics were designed and operated using data collected from the USGODAE data catalog. The latency of streaming in Apache Spark was measured and analyzed against many nodes in the cluster. Scalability was monitored by adding and removing nodes in the middle of a streaming job. …

Generalizing Multistage Partition Procedures For Two-Parameter Exponential Populations, Rui Wang

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

ANOVA analysis is a classic tool for multiple comparisons and has been widely used in numerous disciplines due to its simplicity and convenience. The ANOVA procedure is designed to test if a number of different populations are all different. This is followed by usual multiple comparison tests to rank the populations. However, the probability of selecting the best population via ANOVA procedure does not guarantee the probability to be larger than some desired prespecified level. This lack of desirability of the ANOVA procedure was overcome by researchers in early 1950's by designing experiments with the goal of selecting the best …

Semantic-Aware Stealthy Control Logic Infection Attack, Sushma Kalle

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis work we present CLIK, a new, automated, remote attack on the control logic of a programmable logic controller (PLC) in industrial control systems. The CLIK attack modifies the control logic running in a remote target PLC automatically to disrupt a physical process. We implement the CLIK attack on a real PLC. The attack is initiated by subverting the security measures that protect the control logic in a PLC. We found a critical (zero-day) vulnerability, which allows the attacker to overwrite password hash in the PLC during the authentication process. Next, CLIK retrieves and decompiles the original logic …

Ultra-Low Temperature Properties Of Correlated Materials, Seyed Mohammad Ali Radmanesh

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

After the discovery of topological insulators (TIs), it has come to be widely recognized that topological states of matter can actually be widespread. In this sense, TIs have established a new paradigm about topological materials. Recent years have seen a surge of interest in topological semimetals, which embody two different ways of generalizing the effectively massless electrons to bulk materials. Dirac and, particularly, Weyl semimetals should support several transport and optical phenomena that are still being sought in experiments. A number of promising experimental results indicate superconductivity in members of half-Hesuler semimetals which realize the mixing singlet and triplet …

Characterization Of Genes Involved In The Biosynthesis Of Phycoerythrin I And Ii In Cyanobacteria, Adam Nguyen

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic prokaryotes that able to produce oxygen. They have light harvesting complexes called phycobilisomes (PBS). PBS are generally composed of an allophycocyanin core with phycocyanin and phycoerythrin rods connected to the core. PBS are able to efficiently harvest light energy from different wavelengths of visible light due to the evolution of PBP. Phycoerythrin has five chromophores that are attached to six cysteine residues and is essential for efficient green light capture and transfer of energy for use in photosynthesis. The attachment of these chromophores to PBP is facilitated by enzymes known as bilin lyases.

In this study, we …

The Implementation Of The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act In A Virtual Public Charter School, Sarah E. Clifford

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) guarantees certain rights and protections to students with disabilities enrolled in public schools, and to their families. Even though virtual schools are one of the fastest growing trends in public k-12 education, there is evidence that these schools may not be fully implementing IDEA for enrolled students with disabilities. There has been some concern regarding the appropriateness of virtual education for student with disabilities, as well as some concern for the spectrum of services being offered in virtual schools. This case study examined the implementation of special education supports and services in one …

'Geaux Guard' And The Shift To The All-Volunteer Force: The Economics Of The Louisiana Army National Guard, 1973-1991, Titus L. Firmin

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

After the Vietnam War, increased defense funds assigned to the Army National Guard stimulated and supported small communities in Louisiana. Recruits from economically depressed regions lined up to join the Guard because of the competitive pay and the generous education benefits it offered. In the mid-1980s, when a state budgetary shortfall threatened to limit the stream of federal funds and close local armories, communities in Louisiana rallied to keep the doors of their armories open. This paper examines how the readiness efforts of the Louisiana Army National Guard affected the economies of small communities as defense dollars increased following the …

The Fool And The Flood: A Journey, Michelle R. Hoover

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This journey based narrative inspired by the traditional narrative of the Major Arcana cards in the tarot, centers on The Fool and his interactions with the rest of the Major Arcana. The Fool’s journey centers on memory, regaining personal power, admitting and accepting weakness, and creating a personal place in relation to a larger world. This evolution throughout the journey is explored through detailed repeating imagery and symbols drawn from a mixture of traditional tarot imagery and the author’s personal image set created for this narrative.

Innovativeness: One School's Experience Of Sustaining Educational Change, Maria L. Lieux

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

This single, embedded case study focused on educators’ experiences of educational change as they adopted, implemented, and sustained a one-to-one computing innovation over 20 years. The purpose of the study was to explore the innovativeness, the capacity of a school community to take on change for continuous educational improvement over time. Through interviews and focus groups with administrators, teachers, students, and graduates, observations of current classroom practices, and archival data, the study provides an understanding of how individuals experienced change and how a school sustained change over an exceptionally long period of time. Data analysis revealed multiple rationales …

If It's Hot, Annelle L. Magnuson

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Asphalt Magnolias: Women In Southern State Police And Highway Patrol Agencies, 1972-2012, Genevieve May

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Women are under-represented in both numbers and at the command level of police agencies after over 40 years of women in policing. The national average for women in policing, as reported by the 2012 Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Report, was 11.9%. Women in state police and highway patrol agencies are well below the national average, particularly in the southern states where the percentage is below 6%. This study uses qualitative data to examine the role of gender and the gendered organizational structure and culture of police agencies through interview data from 24 women troopers and one academy cadet …

Risk Assessment Of Dropped Cylindrical Objects In Offshore Operations, Adelina Steven

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Dropped object are defined as any object that fall under its own weight from a previously static position or fell due to an applied force from equipment or a moving object. It is among the top ten causes of injuries and fatality in oil and gas industry. To solve this problem, several in-house tools and guidelines is developed over time to assess the risk of dropped objects on the sub-sea structures. This thesis focuses on compiling and comparing those methods in hope to improve the recommended practices available in the market. A simple modification is done on the in-house tools …