Digital Commons Network^™

An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis Study: The Children Of Black Southern Protestant Theological Leaders, And Mental Health Implications, Kimberly Frantae Paige

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

According to Lee (2015), most PKs have their own personal stories about their complicated relationship with the church. The kids of Pastors experience pressure to satisfy their parents, peers, and the congregation. They also experience scrutiny and feel they are living “life in the fishbowl” (Benjamin et al., 2021). Meaning their lives and life decisions are constantly on display and discussed or questioned by onlookers; especially the community and members of their congregation (Benjamin et al., 2021). Meanwhile, they are trying to understand who they are, separate from who their parents are, and who society and the congregation thinks they …

Deep Learning Approach For Accurate Segmentation Of Oil Spills In Marine Systems, Mohamed Elsheref

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Oil spills present critical environmental hazards, threatening marine ecosystems and necessitating fast, accurate detection for effective mitigation. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery has been instrumental in detecting oil spills, but manual interpretation is often inefficient and prone to errors. This study addresses the limitations of manual methods by proposing a deep learning approach for automated oil spill detection and segmentation.

Utilizing a novel transfer learning-based semantic segmentation model, this research focuses on detecting oil slicks on the sea surface with higher accuracy and efficiency. The model leverages pre-trained networks and incorporates U-Net variants, including UNet++ and MultiResUNet, to optimize spatial …

Enhancing Password Security And Memorability Using Machine Learning And Linguistic Patterns, Jared Wise

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In the digital age, text-based passwords remain a primary method for securing online accounts. Yet, users frequently face a dilemma between creating passwords that are easy to remember and sufficiently secure against cyberattacks. This research introduces an approach to password generation that bridges this gap by utilizing linguistic patterns, particularly song lyrics, to develop highly secure and naturally memorable passwords. Using large lyric datasets gained from web scrapes from popular song lyric websites (AZ Lyrics, Genius), features are extracted from a corpus of over 5 million lyrics using sentence structure and natural language processing in a novel way. In using …

Mission Possible: Motivating Students Toward High School Completion, Terri Howard

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Celebrated each spring, high school graduation yields many positive, long-term impacts on an individual’s life. These include better overall health, lower reliance on government resources, higher lifetime earnings, and eligibility for post-secondary educational opportunities (Levin et al., 2007; Rowley et al., 2011; McFarland et al., 2019; Uretsky, 2019). While the benefits of high school completion are clear, each year hundreds of students fail to meet diploma requirements. Autonomous motivation, both intrinsic motivation and integrated regulation, drives engagement in activities perceived as relevant to desired outcomes and is closely associated with positive academic performance, school persistence (Deci et al., 1991; Vallerand …

Transmission Main Construction Management - An Assessment Of Project Tracking During Transition To A Cloud Based System, Martin C. Munger

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A massive $2B settlement between the Federal Government and the City of New Orleans to remediate the damage to municipal infrastructure from Hurricane Katrina and the failed USACE levee system required the repair of roughly 400 of 1600 miles of roadways in New Orleans. The mandated repairs included many subsurface utilities below those roads. Traditional engineering construction project management practices proved inadequate to manage such a massive undertaking on the strict timelines mandated by FEMA funding. Unprecedented volumes of work for the engineering and construction industries and the government agencies tasked with performing the work from design through construction revealed …

Building Energy Management: A Data-Driven Approach Using Clustering And Load Forecasting, Aviral Kandel

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The increase of smart meters in the grid has led to the generation of a vast amount of high dimensional energy data with improving temporal resolution. During analysis, relying on short samples like a day or week of data, could lead to wrong conclusion due to seasonal dynamics and customer behavior variations. To effectively utilize the vast amount of information, it must be compressed into a low-dimensional representation. This thesis explores the state-of-the-art dimensionality reduction techniques for a high-dimensional, non-linear energy dataset and proposes a novel deep learning based method to address the limitation of existing approaches. The proposed method …

A Talking Cart, Abdullah Bin Naeem

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This research investigates the development of a robust AI-powered detection and tracking engine aimed at revolutionizing the retail checkout experience. The foundation of this work is a comprehensive exploration of state-of-the-art Computer Vision methodologies, particularly focusing on object detection, segmentation, and tracking. The study employs a modular pipeline that integrates advanced visual recognition algorithms with a robust data processing framework.

Key to this work is the construction of a synthetic dataset using Unity3D, enabling the generation of high-quality annotated data that mirrors real-world retail scenarios. This approach addresses the challenge of insufficient labeled datasets by simulating diverse and cluttered shopping …

Sufficemi Or Life Noncyclic, Luca Van Der Heide

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Implementation Of Non-Linear Filtering Techniques For Object Tracking, Shaswat Koirala

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Climate Change , House Prices And Inequality In The United States, Zeynullah Gider

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the multifaceted relationship between climate change, housing values, and inequality in the United States using county-level data from 2005 to 2022. In Chapter 1, we examine the heterogeneous impact of climate change on house prices, employing fixed-effect panel data analysis, Difference-in-Differences (DiD) with Propensity Score Matching (PSM), and fixed-effect panel quantile regressions. Findings indicate that climate change significantly impacts housing values, but this effect is not uniform. Low-value homes experience substantial price discounts due to heightened climate risk perception, while high-value homes are largely unaffected. This heterogeneity suggests that climate change poses a greater financial threat to …

Fragments Of Fire: Essays On Womanhood, Family, And Environment, Valerie Rose Palacios

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Fragments of Fire is a collection of non-fiction, memoir, and opinion essays that navigate themes of gender and societal issues, coming-of-age, generational dynamics, death, and the natural environment. Through an intricate blend of introspection, keen observation, and literary analysis, these essays offer insight into the transformative journey from girlhood to womanhood as experienced by a young Latina. This collection provides a resonant voice that bridges personal narrative with broader cultural and existential questions.

Examining The Impact Of Eds And Meds Anchor Institutions On Local Communities: A Mixed Methods Case Study On University Medical Center New Orleans, Samuel P. Firmin

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine how the University Medical Center New Orleans (UMCNO), a major Eds and Meds anchor institution, has contributed to the well-being outcomes of surrounding communities within the New Orleans BioDistrict since its opening in 2015. Eds and Meds institutions often have mixed impacts on their local communities, and little research has focused on their effects in the Deep South, particularly in New Orleans, a region with pronounced socioeconomic disparities. This study aimed to address this research gap by investigating the following question: to what extent does UMCNO's Community Health Needs Assessments align with …

New Constraints On The Stratigraphic Architecture And Evolution Of Mississippi River Delta Lobe Activity: Barataria Basin, Southeastern La, Wilke Coleman

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Barataria Basin is a shallow water, interdistributary estuary that has evolved in response to dynamic depositional regimes governed by distributary avulsion and reworking of sediments by coastal processes. In the Mississippi River delta plain, the migratory nature of the River has produced an evolving landscape constructed through episodes of regressive and transgressive sedimentation. These processes produce unique depositional signatures in the stratigraphic record, however the transgressive component of the delta cycle often results in obliteration of the regressive phase. This study uses a modern suite of geophysical and sediment core data to construct a revised geologic framework in Barataria Basin, …

Survival Of The Smartest? The Evolutionary Ecology Of Cognition In Anolis Lizards, Mahaut V. Sorlin

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Cognitive processes such as learning, memory, and decision-making are integral to an organism’s fitness, allowing to integrate cues from its environment and adjust its behavior accordingly. Historically, cognitive abilities were thought to have evolved according to a Scala Naturae design—an idea that has since been disproven—which suggested that complex cognitive abilities were exclusive to “higher” taxa. This perspective has created significant phylogenetic gaps in our understanding of cognitive evolution. In this dissertation I aimed to address this issue by investigating the evolution of cognition in reptiles, focusing on the green (Anolis carolinensis) and the brown anole (Anolis …

Financial Risk In A Changing Climate, Mashuk S. Rahman

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Essay 1:

Given the missing-not-at-random (MNAR) nature of carbon emissions figures under the voluntary disclosure regulator environment, this research imputes synthetic emissions figures for both disclosing and non-disclosing publicly traded US firms, using an IV approach adapted for sample bias correction. The forward-observing implied cost of equity capital measure is consistently higher for carbon-intensive firms regardless of disclosure decision. This higher cost found in the large swath of high-emitting firms reduces the net present value of green transition investments, thus fueling existing research on the counterproductive natures of capital allocation in efforts to reduce corporate pollution. Contrary to emerging research, …

Genetic Aspects Of Resilience In The Foundational Seagrass Halodule Wrightii: The Role Of Genetic Variation And Gene Expression In Maintaining Primary Production, Anastasia M. Konefal

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Seagrasses are coastal foundation species which significantly contribute to the primary production of shallow water ecosystems and provide several services. However, seagrasses, like other coastal foundation species, are threatened by myriad anthropogenic stressors. Conservation is difficult in ecosystems under multiple threats where the factors that contribute to production are not easily elucidated. Genetic diversity and gene expression may be related to the function and stability of populations but are rarely considered in management plans. High genetic diversity and the associated trait variation within a population are known to contribute to higher function and stability of a population. Additionally, individual-level changes …

Methods For Improving Low Frequency Selection And Electrode Firing Order In Cochlear Implants, James H. Keen Jr.

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The Advanced Bionics cochlear implant devices allocate static frequency bins to electrode channels based on the natural tonotopic organization of the cochlea. These frequency bins are wide and limited, especially in the lower range. Considering that the fundamental tones of the human voice and the primary melodic tones in music are in this lower range, it is important to have accurate representation of this frequency content. Here, adjustments to the frequency bin allocation algorithm used in the crowdsourced CI Hackathon code are made to allow a more accurate representation of the original signal. First, the frequency bins allocated to each …

Relationship Between School Counselor Multicultural Counseling Competence And School Counselor Consultation, Tamia H. Randolph-Alvarez

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Professional counseling, as represented by associations responsible for setting standards and best practices in the profession, indicates that school counselors need to be prepared to engage in practices that result in systems-wide change. According to the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision [ACES] (2023), these practices include systems-based practices, multicultural competence, and consultation. However, research reveals that school counselors are not being prepared to utilize multicultural consultation (Chowela et al., 2020), defined as a systems-based practice (Hoffman et al., 2006) in this study. The Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (2023) suggests that counseling graduate programs’ …

Environmental Sustainability In Universities Of The Gulf South, Carol T. Lunn

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Universities and colleges are uniquely qualified to serve as community showcases on incorporating environmental sustainability across education, research, operations and leadership. Campuses can serve as living laboratories that benefit students, employees and the local community. The Whole Institution Approach to sustainability promotes active engagement of the entire school in a holistic way. Leadership plays a key role in embedding sustainability across curriculum, research, operations and community engagement.

The purpose of this study was to research universities of the Gulf South to determine what environmental sustainability practices they have in place and examine if there are trends related to university characteristics. …

Bank Board Diversity, Esg Activities, And Bank Risk-Taking, Hassan Bataineh

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In the past decade, there has been growing interest in the influence of diverse boards on risk management, particularly with regard to environmental risk management. However, limited evidence exists on the role of diverse boards in policy decisions, especially the adoption of green credit policy in the banking sector. Drawing on critical mass theory, this study investigates the importance of board gender diversity and the critical mass of women directors that could make a positive impact of green credit policy adoption for global banks. Data was collected for 540 banks operating in 34 countries, covering ten years (2013-2022). The study …

Innovative Rate Design As A Free Market Solution To Climate, Resiliency, And Economic Challenges, Brendan J. Moore

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A century-old problem of electricity rate design is cost-shifting between ratepayers (Wellinghoff, J. & Tong, J., 2015). A much newer cost-shifting example of great and increasing importance happens whenever ratepayer generated “renewable energy” is sold to the grid—all too often, this is accused of being unfairly rewarded (Ritchie, 2016). ProRate resolves both these concerns and ProRate can actually be derived simply from the premise of avoiding “all” cost shifts between ratepayers (Katz, CLEPm Rewards to Arrest Demand Cost-Shifting, 2019; Katz, CLEP5 Rewards to Arrest Energy Cost-Shifting, 2019). Another major problem with the Old Utility Model is the lack of price …

Moral Dilemmas: A Phenomenological Exploration Of Military Members Experience Of War, Deborah Allsbrook Roth

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Due to increasing mental health concerns in combat exposed military members, including posttraumatic stress, there is a commiserate need for improved mental health services. Other mental health concerns include an increasing rate of suicide deaths in military members who have served during Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), or Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). There is a need for mental health counselors to have a more nuanced understanding of the clinical needs of combat exposed military members. In more recent years the construct of moral injury has emerged as a potential explanation for the presentation of certain combat exposed military members. Moral injury …

The Pawn System: How Procedurally Adaptive Webbed Narratives Create Stories, Steven T. Bordelon

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis describes the design, implementation, and testing of a novel procedural narrative system called the Procedurally Adaptive Webbed Narrative (PAWN) system. PAWN procedurally generates characters and, responding to choices made by the player, produces more responsive characters and relationships involving the player and these narrative agents. Initially, this thesis discusses other interactive narrative types that exist, such as emergent or event-driven narratives, along with their strengths and weaknesses. It then examines each aspect of PAWN, starting with initial actor generation, then moving to the capturing of game events and translating them into logical objects called Occurrences. These Occurrences are …

The Slidell Museum: Rebuilding Overlooked And Disregarded Narratives In Small-Town America, Gregory D. Scott

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The community of Slidell, Louisiana, sits across the lake from New Orleans on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Slidell quietly shrouds a multitude of fascinating historic narratives with roots that extend back to before the 1718 founding of New Orleans. The first documented European presence in the area near Slidell occurred in 1699 when Iberville camped at Goose Point a few miles west of present-day Slidell. This area would play a vital role in the survival, growth, and development of the early New Orleans settlement.

Slidell has a rich history of people, places, and events. In 2005, the devastation …

Caregiver Engagement In Their Child's Mental Health Rehabilitation Services: Utilizing The Hoover-Dempsey And Sandler Model Of Parental Involvement (2005) In Mental Health Counseling, Andrew Q. Holmgren

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Mental Health Rehabilitation (MHR) is a widely utilized community mental health service in Louisiana for low-income families. However, treatment adherence, including caregiver engagement for minor clients, is often low. There is still limited understanding of the barriers to caregiver engagement and few tools to assess these barriers and engagement behaviors. Clinicians, caregivers, and clients currently engaged in MHR services completed a modified version of the Parent Involvement Project Questionnaire (PIPQ) to determine if this scale and its associated theory, the Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler Model of Parental Involvement (2005), can be used in a mental health counseling format to assess for …

Muslim International Students’ Perception Of Islamophobia In Their Immigration Journey To The U.S.: A Case Study, Sheri Beyer

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This study serves as an impetus for universities to address improving pre-arrival services and procedures for Muslim international students and a resource for practitioners and lawmakers to examine current policies specifically through the lens of Critical Race and Critical Muslim Theory. Policymakers can examine the effects of Islamophobia on international students and how it affects higher education, communities, and the economies.

Towing Tank Trials Of Hydrokinetic Turbine Scale Model To Support Marine Energy System Verification, Shahab Rouhi

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In response to the escalating demand for sustainable energy solutions and the critical reevaluation of conventional fossil fuels due to environmental concerns, this dissertation embarks on a comprehensive exploration of hydrokinetic energy as a promising alternative. The study delves into the underexplored domain of hydrokinetic energy, leveraging innovative methodologies for effective utilization and harnessing, particularly through the development and investigation of hydrokinetic turbines.

In the realm of hydrokinetic energy conversion, our research has exclusively concentrated on horizontal-axis turbines, distinct from other turbine configurations. Noteworthy is the adaptation of a conventional horizontal-axis wind turbine for water currents, revealing enhanced performance through …

Caribbean Christmas, Michael Krall

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A simple Hallmark style Christmas script taking place in the Caribbean. Cole has developed an app used for the education of young students and moves to the Eastern Caribbean island of Saint Joseph, but his boss desires to use the app for data collection, threatening Cole's budding relationship and his new friends in community.

Comparative Predictive Analysis Of Stock Performance In The Tech Sector, Asaad Sendi

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This study compares the performance of deep learning models, including Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU), and Transformer, in predicting stock prices across five companies (AAPL, CSCO, META, MSFT, and TSLA) from July 2019 to July 2023. Key findings reveal that GRU models generally exhibit the lowest Mean Absolute Error (MAE), indicating higher precision, particularly notable for CSCO with a remarkably low MAE. While LSTM models often show slightly higher MAE values, they outperform Transformer models in capturing broader trends and variance in stock prices, as evidenced by higher R-squared (R2) values. Transformer models generally exhibit higher MAE …

The Use Of Whole Blood In Increasing The Survivability Of Combat Wounded Troops From 1940 To 1953, Devin Sweet

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Humans have been experimenting with new ways to kill each other for millennia, and for just as long, doctors have been experimenting with methods to improve survivability of those wounded. The 20^th century was one of the bloodiest period in human history; war claimed over one hundred million lives. With the scourge of disease more easily managed, the medical communities came to address the one wound that historically cost most lives – bleeding to death. Shock and exsanguination can kill a person within thirty seconds to two minutes, and finding ways to mitigate that outcome has been the subject …