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Pope A. Duncan Papers, Zach S. Henderson Library Special Collections

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This collection consists of the appointment booklets of Dr. Pope A. Duncan from 1920-2003. These materials span his years as president of South Georgia College, Georgia Southern College (1971-1976), Stetson University (1977-1987), and his later retirement.

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Graduate Studies Fact Book

Graduate Studies Fact Books (2006-2017)

No abstract provided.

Understanding The New York Rabies Epizootic 1985-2005, David Dorrell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Surveillance data are an important part of medical geography. These data are used to produce much of the analyses that define the subdiscipline. It is understood that surveillance data may contain biases, but there have only been limited studies devoted to determining in what ways the data are not representative of actual disease prevalence. New York was selected for this research for several reasons. First, it has a strong rabies data set. Second, it has a centralized system of licensing animal and dog control officers. Third, it is well-represented in terms of local media. This dissertation attempts to better understand …

Granular Contact Lubrication: Theory And Experiment, Karim El Kholy

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is devoted to a theoretical and experimental study of the granular contact lubrication, both. The theory is based on the kinetic of the granular material where the granules interact with each other and with the boundary surfaces through instantaneous, binary collisions, characterized by a constant coefficient of restitution. Specifically this study focuses on granular lubrication in Couette flows. A series of simulations is reported and the results show good agreement with several published papers. Also, a theory that ties the true temperature to the grain mobility is developed. The true temperature of a granular material depends on the …

Synthesis And Properties Of Isoporphyrins And Related Derivatives For Application In Photodynamic Therapy, Sandra Celinah Mwakwari

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Isoporphyrins are tautomers of porphyrins with an interrupted macrocyclic conjugation owing to the presence of a sp3 hybridized meso-carbon. Due to their absorption at long wavelengths (~800nm), isoporphyrins are potential candidates as photosensitizers in photodynamic therapy (PDT), a ternary modality of cancer treatment. They are also of biological interest due to their unique redox properties among porphyrin derivatives and could be a new class of near-IR dyes. Isoporphyrins are known to be unstable with respect to transformation back to the fully conjugated porphyrin chromophore except when the meso-carbon is geminally substituted and for this reason a detailed study of this …

Design, Synthesis, And Conformational Studies Of Peptides Containing α,α-Disubstituted Amino Acids, Jia Wang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

C^α,α-disubstituted amino acids (ααAAs) are widely utilized to conformationally constrain peptides. Several pentapeptides containing dipropylglycine (Dpg) at alternating positions and their α-amino acid counterpart L-norvaline (Nva) analogues were synthesized to fully investigate the impact of Dpg on peptide backbone structure in aqueous solution. CD, VCD and NMR spectral analysis suggest that Dpg containing peptides adopt more ordered structures relative to their Nva containing analogues. The central residues (Ala, Thr, Tyr, Val) and the charged side-chains of Glu and Lys play important roles in the degree of peptide folding. Hydrophobic and branched residues (Val, Tyr) at the …

Copper(Ii) Oxide Mediated Formation And Stabilization Of Combustion Generated Persistent Free Radicals, Hieu Truong

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Biologically damaging semiquinone-type radicals have been reported in cigarette smoke, their likely origin being hydroquinone (HQ) and catechol (CT) molecular precursors contained by the tobacco. Since other biomass contains HQ and CT-type species, it is likely that combustion of other biomass will also form semiquinone-type radicals. All hydrocarbon fuels will form phenol and substituted phenol that can form substituted phenoxyl radicals. Because each of these radicals has the potential to be environmentally persistent and biologically active, their formation and stabilization from various molecular precursors was studied with the focus on surface-bound radicals formed in association with combustion-generated fly-ash particles. Comprehensive …

The Effects Of Trawling And Habitat Use On Red Snapper And The Associated Community, Robert Joseph David Wells

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary impediment to the recovery of Gulf of Mexico (GOM) red snapper is believed to be high levels of bycatch of age 0 and age 1 individuals in shrimp trawls. Thus, conservation of GOM red snapper involves evaluating both habitat-specific function and effects of shrimp trawls on red snapper and the associated benthic ecosystem. The two goals of this study were to evaluate the effects commercial shrimp trawls have on juvenile red snapper life history parameters, on associated fish and invertebrate communities and their habitat, and to identify essential fish habitat (EFH) for red snapper by applying all four …

Probing The Association Behavior Of Hydrophobic Organic Compounds With Dissolved Humic Materials, Hadi M. Marwani

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The association mechanism between hydrophobic organic compounds (HOC) and dissolved humic materials (DHM) has continued to be one of the interesting areas in environmental applications. The goal of the research reported in this dissertation is to investigate the association behavior of HOC with DHM. The first part of this research involves steady-state fluorescence measurements of these multi-component systems to study the effect of DHM content on the association mechanism of HOC, in particular using pyrene as a model. Results showed that steady-state fluorescence alone may not provide enough information about the quenching mechanism of pyrene with DHM. Lifetime based fluorescence …

Factors Influencing The Spatial Distribution Of Natural Resource-Based Industries: The Softwood Lumber Industry In The United States South, Francisco Xavier Aguilar

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Expanding on the Theory of Location, New Economic Geography, and Porter's Theory of Clusters this dissertation attempts to identify key factors influencing the location of firms in a resource-based industry. The softwood lumber industry in the United States is used as a case study to test several hypotheses concerning these theories. Two U.S. regions, the West and the South, were selected for analysis because they account for over 70 percent of U.S lumber manufacturing capacity. A multi-disciplinary research approach involved three-stages. First, self-reported preferences were analyzed using common factor and conjoint analyses for preferences for location attributes. Surveys were sent …

Visualizing The Menstrual Cycle: Effects Of A Redesigned Cycle Diagram On Community College Biology Students' Learning, Francesca Maria Mellieon-Williams

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This mixed methods, exploratory study investigated the importance of the menstrual cycle diagram for understanding human reproduction. Several theories were used to support this study including Visual Design Theory (Tufte, 1990, 1997, 2001), and Human Constructivist Theory (Mintzes, Wandersee, Novak 1998). The two sexuality education programs used by society, abstinence-only programs and comprehensive sex education programs were compared to illustrate how this study applies to the current state of sexuality education in the United States. Community college students from two institutions in the southern region of the United States, registered in five introductory biological science courses, participated in a unit …

Development Of Micropump For Microfluidic Applications, Dong Eun Lee

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation covers the research work on two types of micropumps, one is based on magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) principle that utilizes Lorentz force for actuation, and the other is based on electrochemical actuation. The AC-type MHD micropump was designed and analyzed as a solution to the bubble formation problem encountered in DC-type MHD micropump. A UV-LIGA process using thick layer of SU-8 negative photoresist was successfully developed to microfabricate the AC MHD micropump. Preliminary studies and tests of the AC MHD micropumps demonstrate that bubble formation was significantly reduced to permit the proper function of the micropump. A continuous flow was …

Stereochemical And Regiochemical Trends In The Selective Spectrophotometric Detection Of Biological Molecules, Shan Jiang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Useful mechanistic studies to date concerning sugar detection by arylboronic acid chemosensors have mainly involved the elucidation of equilibrium constants and the role of boron-nitrogen interactions in signal transduction. However, several discreet sugarboronate complexes exist in solution. This is due to the complex equilibria between isomeric species of even the simplest monosaccharides. Relatively few reports have been devoted to a systematic study of the structures of each of the corresponding individual sugar-boronate complexes. We have investigated some of the precise regio- and stereochemical features of the various equilibrating sugar isomers that induce selective signal transduction. As a result of this …

Interactions Of The Triaquatricarbonylrhenium(I) Cation With Nucleotides And Other N-Donor Ligands, Kristie Marie Adams

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Transition metal centers possessing an octahedral geometry are useful for understanding the natural role of metal ions in biology. Complexes based on such metals might improve upon the widely used square planar Pt(II) anticancer drug cisplatin, cis-[Pt(NH₃)₂Cl₂]. The octahedral triaquatricarbonylrhenium(I) cation, fac-[Re(CO)₃(H₂O)₃]⁺, has been shown to possess anticancer activity. Furthermore, Re(I) complexes containing unstable rhenium isotopes have found utility as radiodiagnostic and radiotherapeutic agents. Thus, this work focuses on elucidating the fundamental coordination chemistry of fac-[Re(CO)₃(H₂O)₃]^{+ …}

Synthesis Of Quaternary Dendronized Cellulose Derivatives And Their Potential Biological Applications, Changde Zhang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, novel dendronized cellulose derivatives with biodegradable backbones were created by using sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) as the starting material. CMC was first transformed into its corresponding tetrabutyl ammonium salt, which reacted with 2-chloro-N-methylpyridinium iodide (CMPI) to produce an activated ester of [2-(N-methyl pyridium) carboxymethyl cellulose] iodide (MPCMCI). The reaction of MPCMCPI and di-tert-butyl 4-[2-(ter-butoxycarbonyl)ethyl]-4-aminoheptanedicarboxylate (BA) produced a new derivative with BA dendron elaborated on cellulose backbone (CMCBA). The degree of substitution (DS) of CMCBA was adjusted by controlling the relative concentration of CMPI and by choosing CMC with different DS or different molecular weights. Thermogrametric analysis (TGA) …

The Role Of Networks In Labor Markets, Nongnuch Soonthornchawakan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Networks of relationships play an important role in the social and economic operation of the labor market. Social connections have been shown to be crucial in influencing the transition and efficiency in the labor market because they can quickly spread information over large segments of society. In particular in “small world” networks everyone can connect to others through very few intermediaries and information can spread far and fast over such a small-world network. The first chapter of this dissertation starts with the formal elements of social network analysis and graph theory. It then provides an overview of the emerging literature …

Characterization Of Advanced Composites- A Nondestructive Approach, Phani Surya Kiran Mylavarapu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Adhesively bonded sandwich structures comprising of particulate composites as core and graphite epoxy skins as stiffeners are widely used for various applications in the marine and aerospace industry. The core material and the stiffener are held together by an adhesive bond. Particulate composites are made from a mixture of a polymer resin and hollow or solid particles. Hollow particulate composites are known as syntactic foams. Particulate composites possess attractive mechanical and physical properties such as high compressive strength etc, making them attractive materials for use in structural applications. Characterization of the adhesive bondline and core material in sandwich structures is …

Multiplicative Renormalization Method For Orthogonal Polynomials, Suat Namli

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

To study the orthogonal polynomials, Asai, Kubo and Kuo recently have developed the multiplicative renormalization method. Motivated by infinite dimensional white noise analysis, it is an alternative to the computational part of the classical Gram-Schmidt process to find the orthogonal polynomials for a given measure. Instead of finding the orthogonal polynomials recursively as described in the Gram-Schmidt process, one analyzes different types of generating functions systematically in order to obtain polynomials after power series expansion. This work also produces the Jacobi-Szego parameters easily and paves the way for the study of one-mode interacting Fock spaces related to these parameters. They …

Identifying Effective And Ineffective Schools For Accountability Purposes: A Comparison Of Four Generic Types Of Accountability Models, Fen Yu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The stakes associated with student performance have been raised to new highs under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, 2001). Many people are concerned with the adequacy and appropriateness of the statistical models used in identifying low-performing schools for educational accountability. The purpose of this study was to compare four generic types of accountability models (i.e., status models, improvement models, growth models, and value-added models) and see if they reach consistent/inconsistent conclusions regarding the effectiveness of the same set of schools. Further, the four models were also compared in terms of “fairness”. A fair model is defined as one …

Knowledge-Based Methods For Automatic Extraction Of Domain-Specific Ontologies, Janardhana R. Punuru

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Semantic web technology aims at developing methodologies for representing large amount of knowledge in web accessible form. The semantics of knowledge should be easy to interpret and understand by computer programs, so that sharing and utilizing knowledge across the Web would be possible. Domain specific ontologies form the basis for knowledge representation in the semantic web. Research on automated development of ontologies from texts has become increasingly important because manual construction of ontologies is labor intensive and costly, and, at the same time, large amount of texts for individual domains is already available in electronic form. However, automatic extraction of …

Improving High School Physical Science Students' Understanding Of The Electromagnetic Spectrum: A Modified Diagram Approach, James Edward Quebedeaux

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The focus of this study was to identify major conceptual difficulties that selected public high school physical science students encounter in understanding a standard electromagnetic spectrum diagram. A research-driven, modified version of that standard diagram was used in this study to determine the value added to student understanding of electromagnetic waves. A content analysis was performed on electromagnetic spectrum diagrams found in US textbooks from the 1950s through the present. A class of public high school physical science students participated in a study consisting of four activities conducted during a three-week unit. Students were given a pre- and post-achievement test …

Environmental Equity In Southeast Louisiana: Oil, People, Policy, And The Geography Of Industrial Hazards, Scott Allan Hemmerling

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores issues and concepts underlying the creation of Louisiana’s rural-industrial petrochemical complex as they relate to environmental equity and industrial development’s deleterious consequences. Cumulative hazards models examine the distribution of technological hazards associated with petroleum extraction and processing and explores how this varies among different socioeconomic groups in three coastal Louisiana parishes. Considerable onshore oil extraction occurs in Jefferson Parish. Lafourche Parish is the primary land-based supply center for the majority of the offshore oil activity in the Gulf of Mexico. The refineries of Saint Bernard Parish represent the endpoint of the flow of raw product and the …

Synthesis And Functionalizations Of Tetrapyrrole Derivatives, Lijuan Jiao

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Chapter 1 of this Dissertation presents a brief overview of the history of tetrapyrrole derivatives and of their fundamental properties. Overviews of porphyrins, benzoporphyrins, chlorins and porphycenes are presented. Work presented in Chapter 2 through Chapter 4 mainly focuses on the syntheses and functionalization of chromophore-extended porphyrin derivatives. Several new synthetic routes for the syntheses and functionalizations of extended porphyrins either at the β-position or at the meso-position of porphyrin are developed. From these improved synthetic routes, the regio-selective syntheses of porphyrin derivatives are described. Chapter 2 mainly focuses on the syntheses of β,β'-fused methylenepropanoporphyrins and related porphyrin dimers. Chapter …

Computer Model Of Hybrid Compensator Of Fast Varying Loads, Veronica Bohorquez

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

A computer model of the hybrid compensator of fast varying loads was developed in this dissertation. The computer model was implemented in MFC Visual C++ compiler version 6.0. The classification of fast varying loads and effects of their operation in distribution systems were described in this dissertation. The power properties of fast varying loads were expressed in terms of the Currents' Physical Components Theory. Therefore, the Currents' Physical Components Theory was applied to systems with non-periodic voltages and currents. The supply current of the fast varying loads was decomposed into the useful and the useless components using an algorithm based …

The Effects Of 3-Dimensional Cadd Modeling Software On The Development Of The Spatial Ability Of Ninth Grade Technology Discovery Students, K. Lynn Basham

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if there is a difference in the development of spatial abilities of ninth grade Technology Discovery students in Mississippi as measured by the Purdue Visualization of Rotations Test. Students experienced one of three differing instructional methods utilizing Pro/Desktop® 3-D CADD solid modeling software. Participants were students in Mississippi schools operating on a 4 x 4 block schedule during either fall or spring semesters during the 2005-2006 school year, and a control group of students whose schools did not offer CADD. Instructional material designed by the researcher was used for two instructional …

Application-Specific Reliable Data Transfer In Wireless Sensor Networks, Damayanti Datta

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

A wireless sensor network (WSN) is a collection of sensor nodes and base stations connected via wireless medium. It sends data collected from the nodes to the base stations for generating information. The size and low cost of the sensor nodes as well as the WSN's ability to connect without wired links are its key advantages which enable it to be deployed in hostile or inaccessible environments at low cost. However, WSNs suffer from high data loss due to the inherent weaknesses in a wireless transmission medium, transmission problems in hostile environments due to human interference, etc. and node failures …

Sign Ambiguities Of Gaussian Sums, Heon Kim

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In 1934, two kinds of multiplicative relations, extit{norm and Davenport-Hasse} relations, between Gaussian sums, were known. In 1964, H. Hasse conjectured that the norm and Davenport-Hasse relations are the only multiplicative relations connecting the Gaussian sums over $mathbb F_p$. However, in 1966, K. Yamamoto provided a simple counterexample disproving the conjecture when Gaussian sums are considered as numbers. This counterexample was a new type of multiplicative relation, called a {it sign ambiguity} (see Definition ef{defi:of_sign_ambi}), involving a $pm$ sign not connected to elementary properties of Gauss sums. In Chapter $5$, we provide an explicit product formula giving an infinite class …

Eigenvalue Optimization And Its Applications In Buckling And Vibration, Srinivas Gopal Krishna

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Eigenvalue problems are of immense interest and play a pivotal role not only in many fields of engineering but also in pure and applied mathematics. An in-depth understanding of this class of problems is a pre-requisite for vibration and buckling analyses of structures. Design optimization of structures to prevent failure due to instability (bucking) and vibration introduces the problem of determining optimal physical parameters such that load carrying capacity or the fundamental natural frequency is maximized. A classical example of such problems is the Lagrange problem of determining the shape of the strongest column against buckling. The primary objective of …

Using Time-Lapse And Stroboscopic Photography To Enhance Student Understanding Of Plant Growth, Structure, And Pollination: An Inquiry-Based Study, Louis John Schultz

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study was designed to evaluate the effects of allowing students to generate their own images in a science class as opposed to using pre-existing images. The participants in the study were 7th grade science students enrolled in a small, rural, Louisiana school. A mixed methods design was used so that call available data was collected and analyzed. The lessons used in the study were based on plant structure, growth, and propagation which fit into the mandated 7th grade science curriculum. The students were involved in the taking of still, time-lapse, and stroboscopic images throughout the study. Although an analysis …

Fabrication Of Dna Microarrays On Poly (Methylmethacrylate) Substrates For Biomolecular Reporting, Catherine N. Situma

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

DNA microarrays require the use of substrates with well-established surface modification / probe attachment chemistries. Glass/quartz have been widely adopted as typical support materials since their surface modification chemistries which involve the use of siloxane –based chemistries have been widely studied however; these chemistry is susceptible to hydrolytic cleavage especially at high or low pH values. Recently, polymers have been sought as alternative microarray support materials but their surface modification strategies are not well characterized compared to glass. This report will entail surface photo-modification of PMMA polymer substrates by UV irradiation which produces functional scaffolds of carboxylic groups that allow …