Digital Commons Network^™

Mathematical Modeling In Understanding Nfkb Signaling Pathway, Huanling Liu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Chronic diseases, cancers and diabetes are associated with dysregulation of many biochemical cues. These biochemical cues are proteins that regulate cellular activity migration and death. The synthesis of these proteins is regulated by nuclear transcription factors. One of the most studied transcription factor is nuclear factor kappa B (NFkappaB). Many different proteins have been identified that regulate the activity of NFkappaB. Yet, how these proteins regulate NFkappaB is still unclear.;Understanding the regulation of NFkappaB is important for developing drugs to treat these diseases. Our long term goal is to understand the mechanisms that regulate NFkappaB activity. The goal of this …

Phospholipid Enhanced Separation With Capillary Electrophoresis, Ruijuan Luo

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Phospholipids were used as an additive in capillary electrophoresis to enhance the separation of glycans derived from alpha1-acid glycoprotein, fetuin, and ribonuclease B. The properties of phospholipid preparations were dependent upon composition, hydration, and temperature. Separation performance was evaluated as a function of these variables. A preparation of 1,2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DMPC) and 1,2-dihexanoyl-snglycero-3-phosphocholine (DHPC), with [DMPC]/[DHPC] = 2.5, in 10% lipid/aqueous buffer at 25 °C provided the best separation efficiency at an electric field strength of 400 V/cm. Resolution was enhanced with the additive as well.;Phospholipids were also investigated as an additive for capillary electrophoresis separation of DNA molecules. Lipid preparations …

Essays On Risk Management Applications To Appalachian Grass -Fed Beef, Maitreyi Mandal

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The study area of this dissertation is the Appalachian state of West Virginia, where pasture-based livestock has traditionally dominated the state's agricultural production sector. Enhanced production risk has been identified as one of the key risk factors in grass fed beef production. This study aims to look into various risk management options that are available to grass-fed beef producers. One such management option is the various livestock insurance and rangeland, forage and grass land protection policies recently introduced and marketed by the Risk Management Agency (RMA) of USDA. The Livestock Risk Protection Plan (LRP) has been available to West Virginia …

Engendering Meaning Within The High School Experience: A Consideration Of Movement And Dance, Stephanie A. Morris

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Dance, movement, and kinesthetic learning are among the most powerful ways in coming to know, yet they are amid the most ignored processes at the high school level. Dance has the power to change lives as it offers aesthetic ways of viewing and connecting with the world through its creative, reflective, and imaginative embodied experiences. I have observed these valuable outcomes and address the nature and power of them with the following questions: (1) How has dance and movement influenced my journey? (2) How has this influence affected the high school experience of my students? The heuristic method of qualitative …

Validity And Reliability Of Accelerometers For Examining Vertical Jump Performance, Ryan M. Ruben

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Purpose. The objectives of this study were to determine the validity and reliability of an accelerometer as a device for estimating force-time curve characteristics and examine the effect of reducing sampling frequency.;Methods. Sixty college aged men and women (age=23.63.1 y; height=180.16.3 cm; weight=85.015.2kg; body fat=14.26.5%) performed 10 restricted (no arm swing) zero-load countermovement vertical jumps each for a total of 600 jumps. Peak force, rate of force development, peak power output, peak velocity, flight time and peak vertical displacement were assessed with the use of a tri-axial accelerometer and compared to a force platform + linear position transducer system. The …

Modeling Of Forest Harvest Scheduling And Terrestrial Carbon Sequestration, Benktesh Dash Sharma

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

It has generally been agreed that forests sequester atmospheric carbon and thus contribute to mitigating anthropogenic emissions in a cost effective manner compared to other available carbon sequestration techniques. With increasing concerns on global greenhouse gases and emerging carbon markets, additional carbon sequestered as a result of sustainable forest management activities can be of significant benefits for forest landowners. Harvesting, an important forest management activity, plays a crucial role in determining the forest's ability in sequestrating carbon. Harvesting modifies the forest carbon sequestration potential depending on time of harvest, age of stands, species composition, and types of harvest. The allocation …

Power Simulator Upgrade For Smart Grid Algorithm Development And Testing, Michael Joseph Spencer

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This thesis describes the conversion of WVU's analog power simulator into a micro-grid of the future test bed by installing digital relays and intelligent electronic switches. The simulator is a hardware representation of the grid which contains traditional hardware, both digital and analog as well as the recent addition of highly connected, via Ethernet and potentially wireless communication, smart switching and monitoring devices. These new devices were chosen specifically for their cyber security capability to explore that facet of smart grid development. It is important to note that this simulator is a hardware implementation and as such is capable of …

Heat Balance Analysis Of Annealing And Galvanneal Furnace In Continuous Galvanizing Lines, Senthil Kumar Sundaramoorthy

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Galvanizing facilities are highly energy intensive operation with electrical and fuel energy representing a significant share of their total energy usage. Furnaces are extensively used in galvanizing process. Production process expertise along with the energy conservation practices can play a significant role in proper usage of energy at galvanizing facilities. Therefore, benchmarking galvanizing energy consumption and understanding the specific energy consumption by various elements are critical. E-GEPDSS (Enhanced Galvanizing Energy Profiler Decision Support System) was built to identify this specific energy consumption by using heat balance analysis. The use of E-GEPDSS does not hinder the production process and the user …

Dynamic Bandgap Tuning Of Solid Thin Film Photonic Crystal Structures, Hyma Yalamanchili

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Nanophotonics, specifically photonic crystals (PhCs), offer unique optical bandgap engineering possibilities that has driven the emergence of a variety of device platforms, including: beam splitters, nano-cavity resonators, lasers, fibers, waveguides and highly sensitive optofluidic biosensor devices. The design and fabrication of accurate lattice parameters for a PhC is very important to achieving the desired operating bandgap. The inclusion of tunability in thin film PhCs not only offers a means of adjusting for fabrication errors but also a mechanism to increase device functionality as well as providing a wider range of operating wavelengths. Nitride thin films, specifically Aluminum Nitride (AlN) and …

Engineering The Endgame, Ellen D. Katz

Michigan Law Review

This Article explores what happens to longstanding remedies for past racial discrimination as conditions change. It shows that Congress and the Supreme Court have responded quite differently to changed conditions when they evaluate such remedies. Congress has generally opted to stay the course, while the Court has been more inclined to view change as cause to terminate a remedy. The Article argues that these very different responses share a defining flaw, namely, they treat existing remedies as fixed until they are terminated. As a result, remedies are either scrapped prematurely or left stagnant despite dramatically changed conditions. The Article seeks …

Thresholds And Tolerance Of Physical Pain Among Young Adults Who Self-Injure, Katrina Mccoy, William Fremouw, Daniel W. Mcneil

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Prevalence rates of nonsuicidal self-injury among college students range from 17% to 38%. Research indicates that individuals with borderline personality disorder who self-injure sometimes report an absence of pain during self-injury. Furthermore, self-injury in the absence of pain has been associated with more frequent suicide attempts. The present study examined pain thresholds and tolerance among 44 college students (11 who engaged in self-injury and 33 who did not). Pain thresholds and tolerance were measured using an algometer pressure device that was used to produce pain in previous laboratory research. Participants who engaged in self-injury had a higher pain tolerance than …

Posture Systematically Alters Ear-Canal Reflectance And Dpoae Properties, Susan E. Voss, Modupe F. Adegoke, Nicholas J. Horton, Kevin N. Sheth, Jonathan Rosand, Christopher A. Shera

Engineering: Faculty Publications

Several studies have demonstrated that the auditory system is sensitive to changes in posture, presumably through changes in intracranial pressure (ICP) that in turn alter the intracochlear pressure, which affects the stiffness of the middle-ear system. This observation has led to efforts to develop an ear-canal based noninvasive diagnostic measure for monitoring ICP, which is currently monitored invasively via access through the skull or spine. Here, we demonstrate the effects of postural changes, and presumably ICP changes, on distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAE) magnitude, DPOAE angle, and power reflectance. Measurements were made on 12 normal-hearing subjects in two postural positions: …

Three Essays On The Role Of Amenities As An Economic Development Strategy, Junpyo Hong

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

It is well known that an amenity is a key driving engine to regional economic growth. However, the site-specific nature of an amenity can characterize them as public goods. Due to this characteristic, local governments have difficulty optimally supplying amenities. This dissertation tries to find relationships between an amenity and economic growth. Three empirical papers comprise the original research in this dissertation. The findings of the meta-analysis in the first essay suggest little methodological diversity exists among researchers linking amenities to economic growth., I do find that employment growth is more likely related to man-made amenities even in research on …

Chemistry Of Rhenium(I) Tricarbonyl Complexes Of Biomedical Relevance, Theshini Perera

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

fac-[Re^I(CO)₃L]ⁿ complexes serve as models for short-lived fac-[^99mTc^I(CO)₃L] imaging tracers. Dangling groups on L, needed to achieve desirable biodistribution, complicate the NMR spectra, which are not readily understood. In fac-[Re^I(CO)₃L]⁺ with less complicated L, NH groups (exo-NH) projecting toward the L face sometimes showed an upfield shift attributable to steric shielding of the exo-NH group from the solvent by the chelate rings. To investigate whether exo-NH groups in six-membered rings exhibit the same effect and whether the …

The Care Plan As An Indicator Of Change In Nursing Science Instruction: A Textbook-Based Analysis, Lindsay Bratton-Mullins

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Sciences are critical in nursing education to aid the nurse in understanding health and disease processes. Accrediting bodies for nursing education have emphasized that educators teach in ways that encourage critical thinking and, therefore, produce safe-practicing, competent nurse graduates. Nursing care plans best reflect nursing education’s central goals. Because of its longevity of use and familiarity, in this study, the nursing care plan was used as a proxy for nursing science’s learning objectives. This research was a study of the nursing care plan as an indicator for change in nursing science education in the United States to determine if change …

Perverse Poisson Sheaves On The Nilpotent Cone, Jared Lee Culbertson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

For a reductive complex algebraic group, the associated nilpotent cone is the variety of nilpotent elements in the corresponding Lie algebra. Understanding the nilpotent cone is of central importance in representation theory. For example, the nilpotent cone plays a prominent role in classifying the representations of finite groups of Lie type. More recently, the nilpotent cone has been shown to have a close connection with the affine flag variety and this has been exploited in the Geometric Langlands Program. We make use of the following important fact. The nilpotent cone is invariant under the coadjoint action of G on the …

Diatom Stratigraphy Defining Ice Sheet Grounding Chronology, Ross Sea, Antarctica, Juan Manuel Chow

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Evidence of Antarctic ice sheet behavior and paleoenvironment is often approached from proxy records because there is a dearth of direct records from Antarctica itself. The studies presented here seek to augment our knowledge of translations of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet’s (WAIS) marine termination based on direct biostratigraphic evidence. Diatom analyses were conducted from two areas of Ross Sea, Antarctica. In the first study, diatoms were used to constrain the age of diamictons from five seismic units in the Eastern Basin and thus expand our knowledge of WAIS behavior during the Southern Hemisphere Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). All five …

Method Of Riemann Surfaces In Modelling Of Cavitating Flow, Anna Zemlyanova

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is concerned with the applications of the Riemann-Hilbert problem on a hyperelliptic Riemann surface to problems on supercavitating flows of a liquid around objects. For a two-dimensional steady irrotational flow of liquid it is possible to introduce a complex potential w(z) which allows to apply the powerful methods of complex analysis to the solution of fluid mechanics problems. In this work problems on supercavitating flows of a liquid around one or two wedges have been stated. The Tulin single-spiral-vortex model is employed as a cavity closure condition. The flow domain is transformed into an auxiliary domain with known …

Oxidation Of Reduced Sulfur Compounds: A Triple-Oxygen-Isotope Perspective, Issaku E. Kohl

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Earth’s geochemical evolution is recorded in the rocks that compose its lithosphere. Specifically, sulfate minerals have been identified as being repositories of information concerning the past hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere. This is due to the non-labile nature of SO42- and its ability to store a record of the oxidative reactions and oxygen sources involved in its formation. Microbial dissimilatory sulfate reduction (MDSR) and sulfide oxidation cause oxygen from H2O and O2 to be trapped to varying degrees in ambient, dissolved SO42-. In order to better interpret the H2O and O2 signals in SO42-, we must deepen our understanding of …

Hamilton-Jacobi Theory For Optimal Control Problems On Stratified Domains, Richard Charles Barnard

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis studies optimal control problems on stratified domains. We first establish a known proximal Hamilton-Jacobi characterization of the value function for problems with Lipschitz dynamics. This background gives the motivation for our results for systems over stratified domains, which is a system with non-Lipschitz dynamics that were introduced by Bressan and Hong. We provide an example that shows their attempt to derive a Hamilton-Jacobi characterization of the value function is incorrect, and discuss the nature of their error. A new construction of a multifunction is introduced that possesses properties similar to those of a Lipschitz multifunction, and is used …

Pliny's Defense Of Empire, Thomas Raymond Laehn

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Despite perennial interest in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History as a record of the prodigious, the quotidian, and the useful in Rome in the first century AD, for over half of a millennium Pliny has been considered little more than an inept compiler of facts and marvels intellectually incapable of formulating a cogent argument supported through the selective marshalling of his materials. It is my contention that Pliny’s encyclopedic text is in fact a first-rate work of political philosophy constituting an apology for Roman imperial expansion grounded in a sophisticated conception of man as the only being capable of passing …

Modeling Thermal Phenomena And Searching For New Thermally Induced Monitor Signals In Large Sale Gravitational Wave Detectors, Rupal Shashikant Amin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) array’s 4 km detectors have transitioned from an initial configuration (iLIGO) to an enhanced configuration (eLIGO) [1]. Both configurations relied on high circulating laser powers to achieve sensitivity goals between 150 Hz and 8 kHz. These power levels were sufficient to induce thermally driven focal affects in the primary optics. Since the detectors were designed to achieve maximum sensitivity when laser light was optimally coupled (mode matched) into the antenna, small deviations in focal parameters influenced performance. A laser based thermal compensation system (TCS) was installed for use in both configurations to counteract excessive …

Optimal Control And Nonlinear Programming, Qingxia Li

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this thesis, we have two distinct but related subjects: optimal control and nonlinear programming. In the first part of this thesis, we prove that the value function, propagated from initial or terminal costs, and constraints, in the form of a differential equation, satisfy a subgradient form of the Hamilton-Jacobi equation in which the Hamiltonian is measurable with respect to time. In the second part of this thesis, we first construct a concrete example to demonstrate conjugate duality theory in vector optimization as developed by Tanino. We also define the normal cones corresponding to Tanino's concept of the subgradient of …

Orthogonal Grassmannians And Hermitian K-Theory In A¹-Homotopy Theory Of Schemes, Girja Shanker Tripathi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this work we prove that the hermitian K-theory is geometrically representable in the A^1 -homotopy category of smooth schemes over a field. We also study in detail a realization functor from the A^1 -homotopy category of smooth schemes over the field R of real numbers to the category of topological spaces. This functor is determined by taking the real points of a smooth R-scheme. There is another realization functor induced by taking the complex points with a similar description although we have not discussed this other functor in this dissertation. Using these realization functors we have concluded in brief …

Pharmaceutical Compounds In Treatment Wetlands: Potential Removal And Effects On Microbial Processes, Jeremy Landon Conkle

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

active compounds (PhACs) have been detected in the aquatic environment as a result of loading from various sources. In Louisiana, USA, many municipalities treat wastewater using natural systems, such as lagoons and wetlands, rather than using conventional wastewater treatment technologies and may discharge PhACs into the environment. These treatment systems are not designed to remove PhACs from wastewater, nor is it currently a regulatory requirement. Research on the fate of PhACs in the environment is needed to understand impacts on Louisiana’s important coastal system. Wastewater sampling for PhACs at the Mandeville, LA wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) determined that this system …

The Impact Of Overfitting And Overgeneralization On The Classification Accuracy In Data Mining, Huy Nguyen Anh Pham

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Current classification approaches usually do not try to achieve a balance between fitting and generalization when they infer models from training data. Such approaches ignore the possibility of different penalty costs for the false-positive, false-negative, and unclassifiable types. Thus, their performances may not be optimal or may even be coincidental. This dissertation analyzes the above issues in depth. It also proposes two new approaches called the Homogeneity-Based Algorithm (HBA) and the Convexity-Based Algorithm (CBA) to address these issues. These new approaches aim at optimally balancing the data fitting and generalization behaviors of models when some traditional classification approaches are used. …

Investigation Of Network Architecture Development And Properties In Thermoset Matrices, Jeremy Owen Swanson

Dissertations

Matrices employed in composite materials directly influence overall composite properties. In all thermoset materials, molecular level interactions and transformations during cure result in heterogeneous architecture. Variability in connectivity results from the often dramatic spatial and topological changes that occur during the crosslinking process. Compatibility (fillers, pigments, additives), temperature gradients and reactivity differences in the precursors only serve to increase the complexity of network formation. The objective of the research herein is to characterize and understand the relationships between cure conditions, conversion, connectivity, network architecture and properties in glassy thermosetting matrix resins.

In this research, epoxy and vinyl ester resins (VERs) …

Edaphic And Vegetative Controls On Mercury Cycling In Oligohaline Wetlands, Jonathan M. Willis

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

With the expansion of the human population and associated industries there is a concomitant increase in both resource utilization and the production of waste and deleterious by-products. Mercury is a naturally-occurring toxic metal with a complicated and unique biogeochemical cycle, and is often a contaminant of ecotoxicological concern in unindustrialized aquatic habitats. The research described herein was designed to elucidate multiple aspects regarding the behavior of mercury in oligohaline wetland habitats, particularly with respect to edaphic and vegetative effects, through a monitoring and characterization study as well as a series of manipulative experiments. The observational study, conducted in the wetlands …

Rank-Based Attachment Leads To Power Law Graphs, Jeannette Janssen, Paweł Prałat

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

We investigate the degree distribution resulting from graph generation models based on rank-based attachment. In rank-based attachment, all vertices are ranked according to a ranking scheme. The link probability of a given vertex is proportional to its rank raised to the power ―α, for some α ∈ (0, 1). Through a rigorous analysis, we show that rank-based attachment models lead to graphs with a power law degree distribution with exponent 1 + 1/α whenever vertices are ranked according to their degree, their age, or a randomly chosen fitness value. We also investigate the case where the ranking is based on …

Model Based Analysis Of Some High Speed Network Issues, Suman Kumar

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The study of complex problems in science and engineering today typically involves large scale data, huge number of large-scale scientific breakthroughs critically depends on large multi-disciplinary and geographically-dispersed research teams, where the high speed network becomes the integral part. To serve the ongoing bandwidth requirement and scalability of these networks, there has been a continuous evolution of different TCPs for high speed networks. Testing these protocols on a real network would be expensive, time consuming and more over not easily available to the researchers worldwide. Network simulation is well accepted and widely used method for performance evaluation, it is well …