Digital Commons Network^™

Denitrification And Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Cultivated And Wetland Alluvial Soils, Sami Ullah

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Agricultural development in the Mississippi River Basin has contributed to an 3-fold increase in NO3 loading of the river. Increased NO3 loading is a primary cause of eutrophication in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Identification of best management practices (BMPs) to reduce NO3 loss and wetlands restoration to remove NO3 through denitrification are critically needed. The objectives of this research were to determine factors controlling denitrification potential of different landscape units in an agricultural watershed and quantify the effects of BMPs and organic C amendments on denitrification rates of cultivated lands and restored forested wetlands. N2O, CH4 and CO2 emissions …

Detection Of Biologically Important Molecules, Kyukwang Kim

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Anions play important roles in biological systems. The design of anion sensors has been of great interest. The selective detection of a specific anion is particularly challenging. In the first chapter, I describe the synthesis of a TBS-protected fluorescein dye (1.1) and its use for the selective detection of fluoride. Solutions of 1.1 either in DCM or in aqueous media at physiological pH show the excellent selectivity towards fluoride to afford color formation while solutions of other interfering anions remain colorless. The monitoring of homocysteine (Hcy) and cysteine (Cys) levels is important since they are biomarkers associated with Alzheimer’s and …

Measurement And Modeling Of Fluid-Fluid Miscibility In Multicomponent Hydrocarbon Systems, Subhash C. Ayirala

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Carbon dioxide injection has currently become a major gas injection process for improved oil recovery. Laboratory evaluations of gas-oil miscibility conditions play an important role in process design and economic success of field miscible gas injection projects. Hence, this study involves the measurement and modeling of fluid-fluid miscibility in multicomponent hydrocarbon systems. A promising new vanishing interfacial tension (VIT) experimental technique has been further explored to determine fluid-fluid miscibility. Interfacial tension measurements have been carried out in three different fluid systems of known phase behavior characteristics using pendent drop shape analysis and capillary rise techniques. The quantities of fluids in …

Liquid Architectures: Marcos Novak's Territory Of Information, Camile A. Silva

LSU Master's Theses

The idea of interactivity between humans and their environment no longer represents the only way of exploring new experiences. Equally passé is the idea that information constitutes the means for this interaction. However, this paper presents that the contemporary idea for interaction has embraced new understandings of the content of experience and the structure of space. New electronic technologies and advanced digital media have separated realities from the realm of the body and transformed experiences into a ubiquitous event. The architectural discourse, that once has been largely a discourse of form and style, has finally overcome those limitations and has …

Reciprocal Peer Tutoring And Treatment Integrity Of Elementary School Students, Brian M. Esteve

LSU Master's Theses

Academic concerns are the most common reason students are referred for special services in schools. This obviously leads to the necessity for schools to have secondary prevention services in place to address the needs of students who are struggling. Peer tutoring, in its various forms, has been well documented as an effective and inexpensive intervention for all academic areas. Despite the promise of peer tutoring, research evidence suggests that teachers may not consistently carry out their roles in the peer tutoring process with sufficient accuracy to ensure positive outcomes. One possible solution to this problem is to have a consultant …

Mapping The Other Truth In The Shintech Case: Emancipatory Mapping For Environmental Justice In South Louisiana, Charles Allen Flanagan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents an alternative mapping approach which challenges the hegemony of abstract space and instrumental reason propagated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in its 1998 study of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality's (DEQ) permitting process. The "other truth" is presented through application of concepts from critical theory, critical geography, and the works of Henri Lefebvre to a specific environmental justice struggle in St. James Parish, Louisiana. In 1996 Shintech, Inc. proposed building a polyvinyl chloride facility in St. James Parish, Louisiana. The community, concerned about the considerable toxic burden already present in the area, formed a …

Modeling And Experimentation Of Drying Of Adipose Derived Adult Stem Cells, Surbhi Mittal

LSU Master's Theses

Development of protocols for storing desiccated cells at ambient temperatures offers tremendous economic and practical advantages over traditional storage procedures such as cryopreservation and freeze-drying. An integrated frame work of experimentation and modeling is adopted in the present work to develop procedures for storage of adult stem cells at ambient temperature. As a first step, we have measured the post-rehydration membrane integrity of two passages, Passage-0 (P0) and Passage-1 (P1), of human adipose-derived stem cells (hASCs). hASCs were dried using a convective stage at three different drying rates (slow, moderate and rapid) in D-PBS with trehalose (50 mM) and glycerol …

Offshore Oil And Gas Platforms As Stepping Stones For Expansion Of Coral Communities: A Molecular Genetic Analysis, Amy D. Atchison

LSU Master's Theses

The northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) is one of the most productive oil and gas exploration areas in the world, currently containing approximately 3,800 offshore platforms. These platforms serve as artificial reefs in shallow water, which until their introduction was nearly devoid of shallow hard substrata. The question is raised whether this newly available substrate could help expand coral populations in the GOM. In this study, I examined adult scleractinian corals on oil and gas platforms in the northern GOM, in the vicinity of the Flower Garden Banks (FGB; approximately 180 km SE of Galveston, Texas) and attempted to determine …

Assessment Of Water Conservation Technique In Rice Culture To Develop Water Use Policies, Manoch Kongchum

LSU Master's Theses

The rapid growth of world population has resulted in significantly increased global water demand. According to a recent report on limited water supply, conservation techniques and water use policies are needed to preserve water resources. Worldwide agriculture is the largest consumer of water, particularly for growing rice. Water use for rice production was chosen because rice will continue to be a staple crop for the majority of the world’s population and because of its pervasive use of water. Hence, this thesis was designed to investigate water conservation possibilities for rice production in two water management regimes: alternate flooding and drying, …

Incompressible Finite Elements Via Hybridization. Part Ii: The Stokes System In Three Space Dimensions, Bernardo Cockburn, Jay Gopalakrishnan

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

We introduce a method that gives exactly incompressible velocity approximations to Stokes ow in three space dimensions. The method is designed by extending the ideas in Part I (http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/10914) of this series, where the Stokes system in two space dimensions was considered. Thus we hybridize a vorticity-velocity formulation to obtain a new mixed method coupling approximations of tangential velocity and pressure on mesh faces. Once this relatively small tangential velocity-pressure system is solved, it is possible to recover a globally divergence-free numerical approximation of the fluid velocity, an approximation of the vorticity whose tangential component is continuous across …

Bulletin: General Catalog Issue 2005-2006, Portland State University

Bulletin & Curriculum Change Documents

No abstract provided.

Knowing When To Draw The Line: Designing More Informative Ecological Experiments, Kathryn L. Cottingham, Jay T. Lennon, Bryan L. Brown

Dartmouth Scholarship

Linear regression and analysis of variance (ANOVA) are two of the most widely used statistical techniques in ecology. Regression quantitatively describes the relationship between a response variable and one or more continuous independent variables, while ANOVA determines whether a response variable differs among discrete values of the independent variable(s). Designing experiments with discrete factors is straightforward because ANOVA is the only option, but what is the best way to design experiments involving continuous factors? Should ecologists prefer experiments with few treatments and many replicates analyzed with ANOVA, or experiments with many treatments and few replicates per treatment analyzed with regression? …

Knowledge-Based Fault Detection Using Time-Frequency Analysis, Venkata S. Vongala

LSU Master's Theses

This work studies a fault detection method which analyzes sensor data for changes in their characteristics to detect the occurrence of faults in a dynamic system. The test system considered in this research is a Boeing-747 aircraft system and the faults considered are the actuator faults in the aircraft. The method is an alternative to conventional fault detection method and does not rely on analytical mathematical models but acquires knowledge about the system through experiments. In this work, we test the concept that the energy distribution of resolution than the windowed Fourier transform. Verification of the proposed methodology is carried …

Performance Based Switching Control For Single Input Linear Time Invariant Systems, Lalitha Srigouri Devarakonda

LSU Master's Theses

In the present research, we propose a new control strategy to improve the performance of a linear time invariant single input system. We consider a performance index that is dependent only on the controlled variable and try to improve it over that obtained when using a stable state feedback control. Since the control law depends on the performance of the controlled variable, we call it Performance Based Switching Control (PBSC). Switching between two state feedbacks is used to achieve this improvement in performance. The switching strategy combines the best features of both strategies. The switching surface is actually composed of …

Adaptive Remote Visualization System With Optimized Network Performance For Large Scale Scientific Data, Mengxia Zhu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation discusses algorithmic and implementation aspects of an automatically configurable remote visualization system, which optimally decomposes and adaptively maps the visualization pipeline to a wide-area network. The first node typically serves as a data server that generates or stores raw data sets and a remote client resides on the last node equipped with a display device ranging from a personal desktop to a powerwall. Intermediate nodes can be located anywhere on the network and often include workstations, clusters, or custom rendering engines. We employ a regression model-based network daemon to estimate the effective bandwidth and minimal delay of a …

The Role Of Calisto/Clindor/Theogenes In Tony Kushner's Adaptation Of The Illusion By Pierre Corneille A Production Thesis In Acting, Preston E. Davis

LSU Master's Theses

The role of Calisto/Clindor/Theogenes in Tony Kushner's adaptation of The Illusion by Pierre Corneille was selected as a thesis project in the fall semester, 2004. This thesis is a written record of the actor's interpretation of the character. The thesis includes a Character Analysis, Four Column Score of the Role and Personal notes on the role.

An Investigation Of Selected Academic And Nonacademic Predictor Variables Of Academic Performance Of Student-Athletes At Louisiana State University, Derek Jerone Morgan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigated the effects of selected predictor variables of academic achievement on the academic performance of student-athletes at Louisiana State University. This study attempted to identify cognitive and noncognitive variables that might explain the variance in the cumulative college grade point average (GPA)among student-athletes at LSU enrolled during the 2003-04 academic year. Cognitive variables included ACT composite score, high school GPA, and cumulative college GPA. Noncognitive variables included positive self-concept, support of academic plans, and community involvement. In addition, data were collected for two sport variables--type of sport participation (revenue and non-revenue generating sports) and time spent on sport …

Comparing Calf Sex Ratio And Semen Sex Ratio Determined By Conventional Pcr, Tara Marie Taylor

LSU Master's Theses

Thirty-nine ejaculates from 8 Holstein bulls were collected. Straws of semen (n=750) were distributed among dairies in three states. Ten straws per ejaculate were sent to Louisiana State University (LSU) Dairy Improvement Center for conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis. Spermatozoal DNA was extracted and PCR analysis was done using one primer set amplifying a single copy 125 base pair (bp) section of the Bos taurus factor IX (Christmas factor) precursor (found on the X chromosome) and another primer set amplifying a single copy section of the Bos taurus sex determining region Y protein (SRY) gene (found on the Y …

The Importance Of Size And Shape In Imprinted Polymers, Jason Campbell

LSU Master's Theses

The existence of shape selectivity in non-covalent molecularly imprinted polymers has been proven using molecular probes. A series of amines varying with different structural motifs and secondary amines with different sized side chains were imprinted, and binding evaluated by HPLC for each amine on polymers imprinted with similar amines. Trends in the binding relationships revealed two major contributions of cavity structure on selectivity afforded by molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs). First, sterics play a dominant role in cases where a molecules structure is too big too fit into an imprinted site formed from a smaller template molecule. Second, molecular structures that …

Geologic Variability And Holocene Sedimentary Record On The Northern Gulf Of Mexico Inner To Mid-Continental Shelf, Triniti A. Dufrene

LSU Master's Theses

Sidescan Sonar, chirp sonar sub-bottom profiles, and grab samples were collected on the north-central Gulf of Mexico continental shelf as part of an interdisciplinary study mapping juvenile red snapper habitat. Demarcation of essential fish habitat for juvenile red snapper (Lutjanus campechansis) in the Gulf of Mexico is considered critical for effective management of this valuable species. The first goal of this study was to map and describe the geology of this region. The second goal was to attempt to relate variations in geology to juvenile red snapper abundance and distribution. Sidescan mosaics were created for ten polygons, ranging in size …

Modification Of Ct Quality Assurance Phantom For Pet/Ct Alignment And Pet Resolution, Prashanth K. Nookala

LSU Master's Theses

Radiotherapy treatment planning utilizing PET and CT is rapidly gaining acceptance in oncology. A limiting factor of the dual modality is the PET/CT alignment. A small error in PET/CT alignment may result in giving large doses of radiation to healthy tissues as a result of poor treatment planning. For this purpose, regular quality assurance testing of PET/CT must be performed. Separate QA procedures and phantoms have been developed for the two different modalities. In particular, many existing phantoms cannot be used for both modalities, which is a requirement for evaluating PET/CT alignment. Our goal is to evaluate several existing phantom …

Spotted Sea Trout (Cynoscion Nebulosus) And Pinfish (Lagodon Rhomboides) Dietary Analysis According To Habitat Type, Micah Russell

LSU Master's Theses

The diets of a transitory fish (spotted sea trout, Cynoscion nebulosus) and a fish with presumed greater site-fidelity (pinfish, Lagodon rhomboides) were analyzed with respect to habitat. Sampling occurred in Barataria Bay, Louisiana between May 2003 and May 2004. Spotted sea trout were caught using gillnets, and pinfish were caught using baited fish traps. Each gear was used on three habitats: mud bottom, oyster shell, and marsh edge. In addition, sampling for spotted sea trout was repeated at three locations along a salinity gradient. A total of 175 spotted sea trout stomachs and 137 pinfish stomachs were examined. Seventeen prey …

Locality, Network Control And Anomaly Detection, Jim Binkley

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Ourmon is a near real-time network monitoring and anomaly detection system that captures packets using port-mirroring on Ethernet switches. It primarily displays data via web graphics using either RRDTOOL stripcharts or via histograms for top talker style graphs. We have developed a theory that network scanning launched primarily by worm programs including TCP and UDP scanners may be caught by monitoring network control data including TCP control packets (SYNS, FINS, RESETS) and ICMP errors, or by monitoring certain carefully chosen metadata such as the flow count itself. In this paper we concentrate on TCP and present a ”flow tuple” focused …

Flexibility – Examining An Underappreciated Motivation For Outsourcing With An Optimization Model In A Small E-Product Manufacturer, Asser Fayed, Timothy R. Anderson, David Fenwick

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Technology outsourcing has recently become a politically sensitive issue with proponents emphasizing longterm economic growth opportunities, and opponents pointing out immediate job losses. The underlying reason for outsourcing is often assumed to be the availability of cheaper labor outside the USA but this overlooks the possibility that companies may simply be seeking greater labor flexibility outside of US state and federal labor laws. This paper quantitatively tests a software company’s motivation to secure a flexible and adaptable labor pool. Although production lines located at multiple sites provide great flexibility for scheduling and costs because each site has its own local …

Do Maps Guide The Way To Npd Success? Theoretical And Practical Aspects Of Knowledge Mapping In Product Development, Antonie J, Jetter

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

New product development success largely depends on the ability to combine newly acquired information on customer demands and technological options with knowledge that exists within the company. Project organization and high employee turnover, however, make it difficult to be informed about what knowledge is available within the company and to access it successfully. Knowledge maps, a popular concept in present knowledge management, offer a possible solution by ?guiding the way to knowledge?. Their purpose, structure and content varies greatly, as does their ability to capture different aspects of knowledge. This paper investigates the theoretical basis of different types of knowledge …

Marine Ice Modification Of Fringing Ice Shelf Flow, Christina L. Hulbe, R. Johnston, Ian R. Joughin, Ted A. Scambos

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Locally derived ice is often observed to fill through-cutting rifts and uneven fronts in ice shelves. That ice may nucleate as fast ice at the shelf front, by growth at the sea surface within rifts, or by basal accretion. Here, we investigate the role of such ice in the flow of the Brunt Ice Shelf and adjacent Stancomb-Wills ice tongue, along the Caird Coast of Antarctica. Much of the shelf system is severely rifted, with locally derived ice filling the space between rift walls and around ice rafts. A series of numerical experiments that account for thermal properties of the …

Methods For Correcting Topographically Induced Radiometric Distortion On Landsat Thematic Mapper Images For Land Cover Classification, David Michael Rosen

Geography Masters Research Papers

Satellite imagery is commonly used to study land-use, land-cover change in mountainous areas. Classification of land-cover types is particularly difficult in this type of terrain because topography affects the spectral response of surface features. Several techniques have been developed to help compensate for this topographic effect and to increase classification accuracy.

The purpose of this study is to compare topographic correction methods to determine which produces the most accurate results. Method 1 does not use any topographic correction, serving as a control. Method 2 is based on the Lambertian model, and uses topographical data as variables in an equation. Method …

Recent Publications

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Infrared Response Of Charge-Coupled Devices, Matthias Loch, Ralf Widenhorn, Erik Bodegom

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

With a band gap of silicon of 1.1eV, the largest wavelength that can excite electrons from the valence to the conduction band is roughly 1100nm. As a consequence, in, for instance, a charge-coupled device, the quantum efficiency (QE) for wavelengths larger than 1100nm is assumed to be zero. We found that there is a response at those longer wavelengths and that the response decreases with increasing wavelength. The QE increases with increasing chip temperature which suggests a thermally activated process. Impurities in the silicon provide the energy levels in the band gap, from which electrons can be excited either thermally …

Making Sense Of Nanocrystal Lattice Fringes, P. Fraundorf, Wentao Qin, Peter Moeck, Eric Mandell

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The orientation dependence of thin-crystal lattice fringes can be gracefully quantified using fringe-visibility maps, a direct-space analog of Kikuchi maps [Nishikawa and Kikuchi, Nature (London) 121, 1019 (1928)]. As in navigation of reciprocal space with the aid of Kikuchi lines, fringe-visibility maps facilitate acquisition of crystallographic information from lattice images. In particular, these maps can help researchers to determine the three-dimensional lattice of individual nanocrystals, to 'fringe-fingerprint' collections of randomly oriented particles, and to measure local specimen thickness with only a modest tilt. Since the number of fringes in an image increases with maximum spatial-frequency squared, these strategies (with help …