Digital Commons Network^™

Search-Based Model-Driven Loop Optimizations For Tensor Contractions, Ajay Panyala

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Complex tensor contraction expressions arise in accurate electronic structure models in quantum chemistry, such as the coupled cluster method. The Tensor Contraction Engine (TCE) is a high-level program synthesis system that facilitates the generation of high-performance parallel programs from tensor contraction equations. We are developing a new software infrastructure for the TCE that is designed to allow experimentation with optimization algorithms for modern computing platforms, including for heterogeneous architectures employing general-purpose graphics processing units (GPGPUs). In this dissertation, we present improvements and extensions to the loop fusion optimization algorithm, which can be used with cost models, e.g., for minimizing memory …

Inattentional Blindness And Auditory Attention: Effects Of Cognitive Load On Visual Awareness, Dillon James Cornett

LSU Master's Theses

The current study investigated the effects of cognitive load, in the presence or absence of distractors, during a dynamic inattentional blindness (IB) task on IB rate. IB is a phenomenon where one fails to notice an unexpected object (UEO) or event (UEE) that is in full view while attention is occupied. In the present study, the presence of distractors was manipulated (present/absent) to investigate the effects of selective attention in inattentional blindness when inhibition of distractors is required or not required. Undergraduates at Louisiana State University completed a visual task while listening to music embedded with sine wave tones (low …

Effort-Based Decision-Making In Schizotypy, Jessica Elaina Mcgovern

LSU Master's Theses

Avolition/apathy, defined as reduced initiation of or persistence in goal-directed behavior, is a pernicious, core negative symptom of schizophrenia. While deficits in effort-based decision-making have been proposed to underlie negative symptom deficits, it remains unknown whether subjective or objective motivation deficits are evident in individuals with elevated schizotypy, a trait associated with putative latent liability of developing psychosis. Thus, the present study examined whether and how objective and subjective motivation deficits manifest in individuals high (n = 57) versus low (n = 58) in schizotypy traits (based on a median-split of total experience scores on the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire –Brief …

Effect Of Tissue Source On Adult Equine Multipotent Stromal Cell Pluripotency Induction Treatment With Synthetic Mrna, Javier Martin Jarazo

LSU Master's Theses

Autogenous and autologous adult multipotent stromal cells are applied to treat equine musculoskeletal injuries in clinical practice. However, options for autologous therapy in the equine specie are restricted due to the limited biological material obtained or MSCs tissue harvest procedure and because of their unpredictable in vivo behavior. Induced pluripotent stem cells represent an alternative to overcome these limitations. Traditionally, iPSCs are produced by introducing DNA for early embryonic genes into cells with viruses. The method tested in this study, avoids the use of viral vectors and potential for exogenous DNA integration into the cell’s genome by utilizing a lipid …

Effects Of Latitude On The Competitive Ability Of Native And Invasive Genotypes Of Phragmites Australis, Anthony K. Chow

LSU Master's Theses

One commonly cited mechanism for the success of invasive species is their superior competitive ability relative to that of native species. Although 88% (22 of 25) of the empirical studies support the prediction that the strength of competition for native species increases with latitude, no studies to date have compared the competitive ability of native and co-occurring invasive species across a broad latitudinal range. In a greenhouse, I investigated whether the competitive ability of North American native and European invasive haplotypes of Phragmites australis vary with latitude. Another widespread, non-indigenous haplotype, the Gulf Coast haplotype, was also included for assessment …

Addressing The Health Of Refugees: Vitamin D, Laura B Madsen

Quill & Scope

No abstract provided.

Convocation Of Thanks Remarks, Christopher Monson, Vinod Ravikumar, Israel Ackerman

Quill & Scope

No abstract provided.

Gumbos- And Ionic Liquid-Coated Quartz Crystal Microbalance Sensors For Detection And Molecular Weight Determination Of Organic Vapors, Bishnu Prasad Regmi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

There has been an ever-increasing demand for the development of high-performance sensing devices for detection and discrimination of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present in different environments. Among a number of sensing devices currently available, sorption-based sensors are particularly attractive because they are simple and inexpensive, require low power, and are appropriate for fabrication of multisensor arrays. A sorption-based sensor is comprised of a chemically active coating immobilized on the surface of a physical transducer. The chemically active film interacts with analytes, and the transducer converts the binding event into an electrical signal. This dissertation is focused on a sorption-based sensor …

Kiobel's Broader Significance: Implications For International Legal Theory, Austen L. Parrish

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Cybersecurity And The Administrative National Security State: Framing The Issues For Federal Legislation, David G. Delaney

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In the digital age, every part of federal government has critical cybersecurity interests. Many of those issues are brought into sharp focus by Edward Snowden's disclosure of sensitive government cyber intelligence programs conducted by the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Central Intelligence Agency. Courts are reviewing various constitutional and statutory challenges to those programs, two government review groups have reported on related legal and policy issues, and Congress is considering cyber intelligence reform proposals. All of this action comes on the heels of significant efforts by successive administrations to restructure government and pass comprehensive cybersecurity …

The Effects Of A Test-Taking Skills Intervention On Test Anxiety And Test Performance In 4th Graders, Meredith T. Harris

LSU Master's Theses

Increases in standardized testing have been accompanied by increased reports of test anxiety in younger students. School-based test anxiety interventions can be implemented to decrease test anxiety and improve test performance. Skill-based interventions have effectively addressed both of these variables; however, the research has primarily targeted secondary and university students. The purpose of the current study was to determine if a test-taking skills intervention would decrease test anxiety and improve test performance in 4th grade students. Results indicated that the test-taking skills intervention resulted only in a minor decrease in test anxiety that maintained at 1-month follow-up. Effects on test …

More Than Met The Eye: Industry In The Antebellum Gulf South, Michael Sean Frawley

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

1860 was a census year. Census marshals spread out across the United States to record many different aspects of American society, including information on population, agriculture and, most importantly for this study, manufacturing. The antebellum Gulf South has traditionally been viewed as a region with little industrial development. But, both contemporaries and historians based their view of industry in the Gulf South on what was recorded in the census schedules. Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas were portrayed in the census as areas with little industrial development. But, as many historians have discovered, there were errors in the 1860 census, especially errors …

Vocabulary Matching : Potential For A Diagnostic Performance Indicator, Jodie Schraven

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Predictive validity was explored between vocabulary matching (VM) probe scores and the integrated Louisiana Education Assessment Program (iLEAP) social studies standardized subtest score for 224 sixth-grade students across demographic categories from one rural southeastern Louisiana school district. Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) conducted in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS, 2007) produced Pearson correlations between .51 and .70 for five benchmark probes for the entire sample. Predictive cutscores created using Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve analyses and a diagnostic accuracy application software program illustrated that VM cutscores did not correctly predict which students would pass or fail with enough …

Methionine Restriction-Induced Metabolic Changes In C57bl6j Mice, Cory Christopher Cortez

LSU Master's Theses

Introduction: Eighty percent restriction of normal dietary methionine (MR) intake has been shown to increase energy expenditure and attenuate the rate of adiposity gain in rodents, despite a paradoxical increase in energy intake. Energy expenditure in rats was shown to increase, even though physical activity level stays the same. This observation suggests that metabolic mechanisms account for the majority of increased energy expenditure measured in methionine restricted animals. Purpose: To observe and document the onset of physiological effects brought about and to determine the mechanistic role of the skeletal muscle on MR-induced metabolic changes in the C57BL6J mouse. Methods: C57BL6J …

Quantum Optical Metrology, Sensing And Imaging, Kebei Jiang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation we begin with a brief introduction to quantum optics concentrating on the topics of the noise of quantum optical states, quantum estimation theory, quantum interferometry and the atom-field interaction. This background is necessary for understanding the discussions in later chapters. In particular, quantum interferometry, which is optical interferometry when the light source is a quantum mechanical state, plays a central role in this dissertation. In Chapter 2 we discuss the phase estimation sensitivity of quantum metrology when photon loss is present. In Chapter 3 we extend the discussion to include the phase fluctuation of the system caused …

Identifying Congressional Overrides Should Not Be This Hard, Deborah Widiss

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This paper is an invited response to Professor William N. Eskridge, Jr., and Mr. Matthew R. Christiansen’s recently-published study (92 Texas L. Rev. 1317 (2014)) identifying and analyzing Congressional overrides of Supreme Court statutory interpretation decisions since 1967. Christiansen and Eskridge provide a new taxonomy for overrides that distinguishes between "restorative" overrides, which denounce a judicial interpretation as misrepresenting prior Congressional intent, and overrides that simply update or clarify policy. Although political science and legal scholarship has focused on the interbranch struggle implicit in restorative overrides, Christiansen and Eskridge classify only about 20% of the overrides in their total dataset …

Virtual Designs, Mark D. Janis, Jason J. Du Mont

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Industrial design is migrating to the virtual world, and the design patent system is migrating with it. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has already granted several thousand design patents on virtual designs, patents that cover the designs of graphical user interfaces for smartphones, tablets, and other products, as well as the designs of icons or other artifacts of various virtual environments. Many more such design patent applications are pending; in fact, U.S. design patent applications for virtual designs represent one of the fastest growing forms of design subject matter at the USPTO.

Our project is the first comprehensive …

Did The National Security Agency Destroy The Prospects For Confidentiality And Privilege When Lawyers Store Clients' Files In The Cloud--And What, If Anything, Can Lawyers And Law Firms Realistically Do In Response?, Sarah Jane Hughes

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Investigation Of Dimensionality-Dependent Foam Rheological Properties By Using Mechanistic Foam Model, Woochan Lee

LSU Master's Theses

A numerous laboratory and field tests revealed that foam can effectively control gas mobility, improve sweep efficiency, and increase oil production, if correctly designed. It is believed that there is a significant gap between small laboratory-scale experiments and large field-scale tests because of two main reasons: (i) typical laboratory flow tests are conducted in linear systems, while field-scale foam EOR processes are performed in radial (or spherical partly) systems in general; and (ii) through the complicated in-situ lamella creation and coalescence mechanisms and non-Newtonian behavior, foam rheology is thought to depend on geometry and dimensionality and, as a result, it …

A Qualitative Study Utilizing Non-Fiction African-American Folktales: Process And Product With Struggling Second, Third, And Fifth Graders In North Louisiana, Gail Guidry Griffin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents a qualitative of a study utilizing non-fiction African-American Folktales with struggling readers in second, third, and fifth grades. The study was conducted to explore how teachers, reading/library media specialists, and students utilize a variety of non-fiction folktales in their classrooms and the library media center. From this topic the following research questions were devised. The researcher discovered the challenges that teachers are faced with the implementation of folktales, how is folktales aligned with the (CCSS) Common Core State Standards, what role do heroes play in folktales, and what traits and/or characteristics would students prefer their hero to …

Art Tweets: A Content Analysis Of Social Media Activity Among Six Top Art Museums In The U.S.A., Patricia Ann Milford-Hoyt

LSU Master's Theses

This study presents a content analysis of Twitter posts tagged with one of six institutions to establish uses and gratifications with this medium and the art museum industry. Due to industry norms, copyright law, museums traditionally do not permit photography and therefore may limit the advancement of their mission through misuse of the social media. This study establishes a baseline by seeking to understand how museums and individual account holders engage on Twitter within the art museum space as well as begin to unearth whether museums are misusing this media outlet and limiting their potential to educate the public while …

Polonium-210 Dynamics In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Patrick Robert Jones

LSU Master's Theses

Polonium-210 (t1/2=138 d) is the most common among the 33 known radioisotopes of Polonium found in the natural environment. It is produced by the radioactive decay of its long-lived grandparent Lead-210(t1/2=22.3 d) via Bismuth-210 (t1/2=5.012 d) and forms as part of the natural Uranium-238 decay series. The primary hazard associated with Polonium-210 is its radioactivity, as an alpha particle emitter. Marine organisms receive their maximum radioactive dose in the natural environment from Polonium-210. Polonium has been known to bioaccumulate in the marine food web and can be potentially harmful to humans via the intake of certain marine organisms. Thus it …

Revealing The Jewishness Of Hannah Arendt, Jennifer Richard

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Hannah Arendt, one of the most important political thinkers of the twentieth century, passed away before finishing her final statement on politics. Because her political theory is incomplete, scholars have adopted many means for interpreting her work. In this dissertation, I adopt a phenomenological approach to understanding Arendt by engaging with the phenomenological method Arendt, herself, used—narrative. I specifically employ the Passover narrative as a metaphorical framework alongside which Arendt’s political theory is traced. In this approach, four elements of Arendt’s theory emerge to distinguish her thought from the Western political tradition: the role of the mental activities, the definition …

Network Analysis Of Circular Permutations In Multidomain Proteins Reveals Functional Linkages For Uncharacterized Proteins., Donald Adjeroh, Yue Jiang, Bing-Hua Jiang, Jie Lin

Department of Pathology, Anatomy, and Cell Biology Faculty Papers

Various studies have implicated different multidomain proteins in cancer. However, there has been little or no detailed study on the role of circular multidomain proteins in the general problem of cancer or on specific cancer types. This work represents an initial attempt at investigating the potential for predicting linkages between known cancer-associated proteins with uncharacterized or hypothetical multidomain proteins, based primarily on circular permutation (CP) relationships. First, we propose an efficient algorithm for rapid identification of both exact and approximate CPs in multidomain proteins. Using the circular relations identified, we construct networks between multidomain proteins, based on which we perform …

Error-Related Negativities During Spelling Judgments Expose Orthographic Knowledge, Lindsay N. Harris, Charles A. Perfetti, Benjamin Rickles

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

In two experiments, we demonstrate that error-related negativities (ERNs) recorded during spelling decisions can expose individual differences in lexical knowledge. The first experiment found that the ERN was elicited during spelling decisions and that its magnitude was correlated with independent measures of subjects’ spelling knowledge. In the second experiment, we manipulated the phonology of misspelled stimuli and observed that ERN magnitudes were larger when misspelled words altered the phonology of their correctly spelled counterparts than when they preserved it. Thus, when an error is made in a decision about spelling, the brain processes indexed by the ERN reflect both phonological …

Common And Uncommon Families And The American Constitutional Order, Linda C. Mcclain

Vanderbilt Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Public Meaning Of Rfra Versus Legislators' Understanding Of Rlpa: A Response To Professor Laycock, James M. Oleske Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Copyright Act And The Frontier Of Television: What To Do About Aereo, Thomas M. Cramer

Vanderbilt Law Review

No abstract provided.

Public Injunctions As A Way Around Concepcion: California's Continued Resistance To The Federal Arbitration Act, Elizabeth Kiesewetter

Journal of Dispute Resolution

This note outlines the general applicability of the FAA and preemption. Next, it examines the Supreme Court's precedent concerning preemption, as it relates to class actions and public policy. This note argues that California's public injunction exception does prohibit outright the arbitration of a particular type of claim and is, thus, preempted by the FAA. The Supreme Court will likely see this rule as being at odds with the FAA and as another repudiation from the California courts of their long-standing FAA jurisprudence. Finally, this note argues that, despite the likely preemption of California's rule, there are strong policy arguments …

Pressure To Plead: How Case-Management Mediation Will Alter Criminal Plea-Bargaining, Taylor C. Leonard

Journal of Dispute Resolution

This note first discusses the facts and proceedings in Milligan. Next, it explores the history and importance of plea-bargaining in the United States and how mediation has slowly become a part of criminal proceedings. Next, this note examines the Milligan court's reasoning for upholding the mediation plea bargain at issue in that case, in light of the legal landscape concerning ADR and the criminal justice system. Finally, this note argues in favor of using case-management mediation in criminal plea negotiations, and explores the proper methods and procedures to make these mediations successful.